Removing Barriers, Increasing Effectiveness - amarc

movement. But the political parties lost their faith in the people. Every time thepeople went out onto the streets, the political leaders told them to go back andnot come to the rally.JD: Are you suggesting here that this was a crisis of legitimacy of a wholepolitical class?RM: Yes, that class lost their faith in the people and had no moral grounds onwhich to appeal to the people. (…) the main cause for that was that all politicalleaders were corrupt and irresponsible, in terms of listening to and acting onbehalf of the people. Instead, they exercised a lot of power for their own personalbenefit.JD: Can you make connection between this extraordinary event of four millionpeople coming out onto the streets in generally peaceful protest and communitymedia in Nepal?RM: Yes, there is a direct correlation. From the very beginning, community mediaprogrammes went out telling people that freedom of speech and freedom ofexpression were the people’s rights, not just a media person’s rights. Weeducated people from the beginning about their rights, using programmes verystrategically to attract the attention of people, arranging a lot of unique eventsthat would get onto the front pages of the newspapers and international mediaalso. Then we tried to involve all the professionals and called for solidarity anddid many events with the people.JD: Who is “we” here?RM: Basically the radio broadcasters who had constituted an independent radiomovement in Nepal that involved all community and commercial radiobroadcasters in the country.JD: How many radio stations are there in Nepal?RM: More than 50 radio stations across the whole of Nepal. These cover morethan 65 percent of the total population.JD: Does this radio network reach the majority [geography] of the country?RM: Yes. And this network started working together as soon as the king beganbanning the news. In fact, we were told, “don’t broadcast anything except music!”So then we started singing the news!Deane: You sang the news?AMARC Community Radio Social Impact Assessment 2007 Page 70 of 128