Omer Madra

A law expert, writer, columnist, and former magazine publisher, Omer Madra has been committed to advancing citizen participation in democracy throughout his varied career. In 1995, he joined this aim with a strategy that makes it possible: he launched an independent, listener-supported public radio, the first of its kind in Turkey.

Until very recently citizen action in Turkey has been met by severe government scrutiny and even now citizens fear that speaking their opinions openly on certain subjects may result in rebuke or worse.

Omer, who was a member of the “’68 generation” of student reformers in Turkey, has helped to strengthen democracy in the fields of law, journalism, and human rights throughout his career. Over the years and in many countries, he has observed the important role of the media in fostering democracy; yet here in Turkey, he saw that its machinery was controlled by the State or, more recently, driven by profit. Furthermore, television, radio, and journals did not offer citizens an opportunity to really participate. Publicly sharing strong perspectives on certain topics—Muslim headscarves in public school classrooms (the Turkish state is strictly secular), the Turkish military’s actions against the Kurdish people, for example—would (and still will) land a person in jail.
To open dialogue and encourage citizens to share ideas, Omer launched the country’s first listener-supported public radio station in 1995. Since then, he has steered the effort from its beginnings with ninety-two “founders” backed by a small group of loyal listeners and contributors to a significant effort involving hundreds of volunteers and reaching thousands of listeners from all walks of life. Now, the station broadcasts to the greater Istanbul area, and attracts listeners who tune in to learn and participate in its quality offerings: volunteer-run programs on culture, art, history, music, as well as on more sensitive topics such as citizenship responsibilities, censorship, the role and nature of the media in Turkish society, the implications of eventual EU integration on law and domestic policy in Turkey.

Omer has used the radio to encourage people to get and stay involved in the democratic process. And he has succeeded. Listeners affect public policy, as was evidenced recently by a radio campaign that inspired national debate on Turkey’s involvement in the US-led invasion of Iraq. On a less overtly political front, volunteers share information on the air about promising citizen initiatives, involve young people in all aspects of programming, and offer listeners a deep sense of connection to other listeners who may or may not share their views, but who do absolutely share a commitment to dialogue and open exchange.

Turkey’s recent history, which includes episodes of martial law in 1972 and 1980, has called into question the democratic ideals on which the Turkish Republic was founded in the 1920s. Citizen organizations were disbanded in 1980, and only now enjoy increasing support and a more favorable regulatory environment. Yet even today, teachers and civil servants are prohibited from joining a citizen association of any sort, and citizens generally do not feel encouraged to pursue initiatives of their own design or to actively contribute to the shape and function of the society.

The media can play a critical role in inspiring democracy by guaranteeing accurate, objective information and opening a space to share perspectives that arise from across society, from people of widely varying circumstances, backgrounds, and means. Yet in Turkey, media outlets have historically been controlled by the State; until 1993, the law forbade non-State radio or television programming. In the 1990s, private TV and radio stations opened with the support of the Prime Minister and backing from the intellectual elite. These efforts forecast more open times, yet commercial radio failed in many of the same ways that State-run radio and television had. Controlled by the very wealthy, and by the interest groups they represented, commercial stations presented biased content to persuade or boost profit. Diversity of opinion failed to gain a foothold, even as competitors crowded in.

To reach a broad audience and encourage perspectives from across the board, Omer turned to radio as the medium of choice. Radio is free to all in the listening area, not just subscribers or those who own a television; it’s feasible, as operating costs are relatively low compared to, for example, television; it’s more personal than print media and offers a literal and as well figurative voice to participants. “Açık Radyo”, or “Open Radio” is as much about community as information, this third observation about the suitability of radio is key.

Omer saw that to make the station a tool for democracy, it needed a broad base of dedicated volunteers. Giving volunteers a real stake in the product has been a central strategy. From Açık’s inception, volunteers have risen to the challenge, conducting early research on the technical aspects of radio broadcast, and now designing and producing all program content. Grounding the effort early on by designing a set of guiding principles has allowed the effort to grow while remaining principled.

Involving volunteers of different backgrounds offers important benefits. While Omer concedes that the effort began with the intellectual elite—academics, thought leaders, and activists—he is now focusing on involving people of many backgrounds, surmounting barriers that have traditionally divided Turks. One such barrier is age. Açık’s offices are filled with volunteers in their late teens and early twenties, operating the sound equipment, handling administrative tasks, and bringing their perspectives to listeners by appearing as guests on shows. This effort to involve young people obviously draws in energetic participants who will be lifelong supporters and participants and who will help to spread the idea. The added benefit is that helps to revise the age-old presumption in Turkey that young people have very little to say because they have little experience. At Açık, all people and perspectives that are not totalitarian are welcome, and cross-generation partnerships and mentorships develop naturally.

The radio programming covers a bit of everything, presented not as one expert opining on a subject, but as fellow citizens sharing their interest in and knowledge of any of a range of topics. One of the key programming areas relates to the law and offers a blend of expert perspectives, drawn from Turkey and abroad, and non-expert observations and real-life experiences with the law. On the other end of the spectrum, music, from Western classical to jazz to Turkish traditional, opens important dialogue on culture and draws in diverse listeners. Other programs examine history and current trends in Turkish society, such as social entrepreneurship, and offer a platform for new ideas and initiatives to gain visibility and provoke dialogue. Across the many topics and programs, the technical aspects, such as sound quality, are constant and professional.

Açık has involved six hundred volunteers over the past seven years. This volunteer corps plans and delivers 24-hour programming to a weekly audience of one hundred twenty thousand listeners in the greater Istanbul area. Omer is working to draw in, as well as export, content from European stations as well, an effort that requires technical upgrades to strengthen transmission. To broadcast nationwide, funds, infrastructure, and new legal requirements are called for. Surmounting these challenges may be possible in the coming years, and plans are underway to open branches in Ankara, Adana, and Izmir.

Despite being located in one city, the station has demonstrated national impact in significant ways. When the United States pushed Turkey to participate in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the government and the commercial media went along almost automatically despite public skepticism. It was Açık that was finally able to generate a debate about the wisdom of Turkey’s participation, leading to some of the limits Turkey eventually placed on its involvement.

Because getting public radio into the hands of the public is the ultimate aim, a spread strategy that relies at least in part on communities voicing an interest, then pushing the initial idea to fruition makes the most sense. Thus, Omer and his colleagues help new stations get off the ground by sharing technical expertise, as well as practices Açık has found effective at various stages in its growth and maturity. Açık has inspired the formation of a few other listener-supported public radio stations so far, including Yön FM and several very local stations.

Funding for the organization comes from members and from organizations and other groups that support the idea. In February 2004, Omer began a campaign to reach and draw in nine thousand contributors. Members are made to feel part of a welcoming community and are granted access to Açık’s Website, for example, which contains Turkish-language transcripts from all programs, as well as to other resources and information shared by the community.

Omer Madra was a university student in the 1960s, a decade of openness and reform in Turkey as in many other countries. He studied political science and graduated first in his class, having completed his doctoral thesis on the European Human Rights Convention, for which he researched law, international relations, and human rights in the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Sweden. Omer then entered the first phase of his career, accepting a post as a university professor and applying his commitment to openness and reform in the academic sphere.

In 1982, two years after martial law came to Turkey, Omer resigned from his position in protest of the new inter-university structure, which he felt cast university professors as promoters of the authoritarian government, not as free thinkers inspiring a new generation of democratic leaders. Following his resignation, he started an art and culture journal, and worked for five years as its director, screening content and using its readership to promote independent thinking.

He later traveled to Strasbourg, France, at the invitation of the European Commission, an assignment that resulted in the publication of his book “Migrant Workers and International Law.” This phase of his career, which established him in the minds of many as an expert in immigration and law, joined his earlier theme of pursuance of democracy with practical applications for Turkey, a country from which thousands of workers migrate to Europe each year.

Omer grew impatient with the limitations of academic research. Thus, in the early nineties, he began to consider ways of involving citizens in grappling with and actively promoting the ideals he had studied, lectured on, and seen work in other countries. The medium of radio offered an important possibility for broad dissemination, and he set out to learn radio broadcasting in 1994.

The following year, in 1995, he gathered 91 people and with them founded Açık Radyo, or “Open Radio,” the country’s first publicly-owned and operated radio. In the early years of the radio, he logged thousands of hours of programming time and tirelessly promoted the station and the idea behind it. In keeping with the mission of the radio, though, most of the content now comes from volunteer participants. Omer continues to host a three-hour program, the Açık Gazette Program that concerns development in Turkey and touches on themes of culture, history, politics, the nature and function of the media in promoting dialogue and exchange of ideas and perspectives. Listenership peaks during the program, as many have come to rely on Omer’s open and clear presentation of new ideas, current trends, and blend of perspectives—everyday people and prominent, nationally- and internationally-acclaimed guests including Noam Chomsky and Joseph Stiglitz.

Reflecting on the beginnings of the radio, Omer recently told a Turkish Times reporter, “It would be a big lie to say that we had predicted and calculated everything in the beginning. It is important to identify the founding principles well, and to continually check ourselves in time whether we are doing this right or not. Sharing information has a life or death importance; we grew, we learned and we shared during this time. To expend energy for democracy and a better society is not a great mission on the one hand, and it is very pretentious on the other hand, of course. The fact that we have been standing tall for seven years against all material and legal barriers show that this is needed.”

Omer works from Açık’s offices on the fifth floor of a worn but comfortable building in Elmadağ district, on the European side of Istanbul. In addition to leading the radio, he teaches international human rights and globalization courses part-time at Bilgi University and gives occasional lectures to audiences of journalists.