There's a sense of urgency on Radio Al-Mahaba, Baghdad's "Voice of Iraqi Women." The station, which debuted a year ago, wants to educate women about their rights in a country where those rights are in a state of flux. It also gives Iraqi women a chance to express their opinions on everything from husbands to politics.
"We tell about their dreams, their suffering, their hopes," explained Radio Al-Mahaba spokeswoman Bushra Jamil in a phone call from Baghdad. Jamil will be in Salt Lake City next week, where Utah friends she has never met are hoping to raise enough money to replace Al-Mahaba's transmitter, destroyed by a bomb last fall.
Utah, too, has a women's radio station, KUTR AM-820. Perhaps there is less suffering on KUTR, and more patter. Still, morning host Kurt Bestor (one of the few men at the station) feels a solidarity with the broadcasters in Baghdad. Bestor has convinced his bosses at Bonneville International to make Al-Mahaba and KUTR "sister stations."
The alliance actually began, in a roundabout way, with Ako Swabb. A native of Japan and the wife of an American, Swabb heard about the women's radio station in Iraq after her son served a Marine tour in Fallujah. She began an e-mail correspondence and then a phone friendship with Jamil, and invited her to come to Utah for a vacation.
Then one thing led to another. Swabb's Salt Lake neighbor told her about Womenade, a local group that supports women's causes, and that led her to Kathy Wilson, Julie Marple and Beryl Main, and then to Bestor. Now, Jamil's visit has expanded to include talks at the Salt Lake City Library and the University of Utah.
"Gradually, Iraqi women lost their freedoms and their rights," Jamil says. Many of those rights were debated as the country worked out a constitution last year, with Shiite fundamentalists pushing for the implementation of Islamic law that could, for example, make it illegal for an Iraqi woman to travel by herself outside the country.
The programming on Al-Mahaba (the name means "love" in Arabic) includes interviews, news, music and, most significantly, a call-in show — where women can hear the opinions and struggles of other women. A year ago, when the station was launched, the programs were aimed at more educated Baghdad women, and were focused on the elections and Iraq Constitution, Jamil says. But it soon became clear that "we didn't address the real needs of Iraqi women. Now we have programs about legal advice, health and education." If the topic is the constitution, there will often be role playing, she says, "using very simple language that is understood."
Domestic violence is a favorite topic on the call-in shows. "Women feel safe when they talk over the phone. A woman doesn't have to give her real name. But she can start to tell us about her suffering." The station has a lawyer on hand to answer questions about custody and marriage, for example "about second or third wives," Jamil explains.
The station was founded by Debbie Bowers of Buffalo, N.Y., and an Iraqi refugee who moved to upstate New York after the Gulf War. Bowers, who will join Jamil in Salt Lake City, applied for a grant from the United Nations Development Fund for Women, eventually securing $350,000 to start the station. It was hoped that it would become self-sufficient after the first year, but Iraq's struggling economy, the insurgency and damage to the station last October have proved obstacles. The station is leasing a transmitter at high, war-time prices.
The staff of Radio Al-Mahaba is mostly female and secular. Only one staffer wears a traditional head scarf, in a city where "many secular women are wearing scarves to protect their lives," Jamil says. With their more progressive ideas, the station sometimes butts heads with the country's fundamentalists, who sometimes try to intimidate reporters, Jamil says.
"They say, 'Why talk about politics. This is none of your business. Talk about food. Talk about children.' "
The staff of Radio Al-Mahaba "are the people walking the walk," says co-founder Bowers. "They're laying the foundation for the next generation to have that very public right to have their voice heard."
Jamil, who also works as an human-rights officer, was reached by phone in Baghdad at about 8 p.m. Iraqi time. She was still at work, putting in her usual 14-hour day. "It's needed," she explained. "It's not a time to focus on ourselves. We're holding our country very close because once you let go, the whole thing will collapse."
She will speak the the Salt Lake City Main Library at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 19; at the University of Utah's Women's Resource Center on Thursday, April 20, at noon; and on Friday at the university's Hinckley Institute of Politics at noon. Her visit is sponsored by Al-Mahaba-Salt Lake City and Bowers' Opportunities for Kids International.
E-mail: jarvik@desnews.com