The Important Story of Bush Radio in South African Democratic Developement
Paul Gresham Hays | 24.08.2000 06:17
Bush radio began as an opposition media that educated people in townships near Cape Town. It still is an opposition media by it's own standards and a highly valuable and successsful one. 89.5 FM has come a marathon from the important days when it used cassettes to reach the neighborhoods of oppression, violence and world concern. Read on, write this URL down and keep it handy.
Cape Town activists had a choice as they struggled to open a radio station. they decided to open it away from the campus.
They had used cassettes very sucessfully and now they were ready to go on air.
A university in Capetown that allowed Africans and coloured in but did not grant them degrees was the location that would attract hundreds of activists to a frequency located at 89.5 FM.
Because the persons who managed the station decided to set up shop away from the campus they called it 'Bush' Radio because they were near some very extreme conditions. Massive poverty, theft of their equipment was a strong possibility and the hardship of working in the townships.
Today the radio station stands tall, after having been made legal in 1995... I believe this date is correct. Hundreds of people have learned skills at this not for profit business.
Write them at P.O. Box 13290 Mowbry 7705 South Africa, write electronically at
mother@bushradio.co.za
Please tell them Paul Hays in Atlanta says hello and that I am working like a whirling dervish for social change and justice.
and please visit www.rnw.nl/realradio/community/html/history_bush_radio.html
They had used cassettes very sucessfully and now they were ready to go on air.
A university in Capetown that allowed Africans and coloured in but did not grant them degrees was the location that would attract hundreds of activists to a frequency located at 89.5 FM.
Because the persons who managed the station decided to set up shop away from the campus they called it 'Bush' Radio because they were near some very extreme conditions. Massive poverty, theft of their equipment was a strong possibility and the hardship of working in the townships.
Today the radio station stands tall, after having been made legal in 1995... I believe this date is correct. Hundreds of people have learned skills at this not for profit business.
Write them at P.O. Box 13290 Mowbry 7705 South Africa, write electronically at
mother@bushradio.co.za Please tell them Paul Hays in Atlanta says hello and that I am working like a whirling dervish for social change and justice.
and please visit www.rnw.nl/realradio/community/html/history_bush_radio.html
Paul Gresham Hays
e-mail:
soyboy_@hotmail.com