Good morning, Mogadishu! Preserving Somalia’s cultural history, one tape at a time | UN News
Historic audio recordings covering the recent history of Somalia are being preserved for future generations thanks to UN support.
The violence that engulfed the country led to the destruction of much of Somalia's cultural heritage. Museums were stripped of their collections, with items destroyed or sold on the black market, and the material in Radio Mogadishu’s vaults was targeted.
The majority of the magnetic, reel-to-reel tape recordings in the Radio Mogadishu archives – made up of Somali-language tapes, records and limited manuscripts – survived the war, although most of its foreign language collection was not so fortunate.
Digital hopes
The introduction of digital technology has breathed new life into Radio Mogadishu, but its analogue archives have been rapidly deteriorating.
The fragile reel-to-reel tapes made from acetate, polyester or polyvinyl chloride (PVC) are at risk of distortion and degradation, according to Daud Aweis, Somalia’s federal Minister of Information, Culture and Tourism.
“This is the only archive for this nation after the civil war,” he said. “As time passes, if we do not preserve it, it will only be seen in pictures.”
Radio Mogadishu’s director, Abdifatah Dahir Jeyte, echoed those concerns.
“Urgent action is imperative to safeguard the history, language, culture and literature of the Somali nation stored within these archives, considering the vastness of Radio Mogadishu's archives, which contain around 225,000 tapes and vinyl records, the digital conversion is currently incomplete, covering less than 30 per cent of the total content,” he said.
Initial attempts at digitization began in 2013, with the support of the French government, African Union, United Nations and Somalia’s information ministry. Staff worked to preserve the collection and make the music, speeches, plays and prayers available to a generation who had never known how vibrant Somalia was prior to the war.
But, the attempt foundered, with less than a third of the items digitized.
UN mission to preserve cultural treasure
Working with the Government’s information ministry, the UN in Somalia has been exploring options for a solution to the urgent digitization needs of Radio Mogadishu’s archives.
“The open-reel tape collection of Radio Mogadishu is a cultural treasure that all Somalis would benefit from,” said Kirsten Young, Chief of the UN Assistance Mission in Somalia’s (UNSOM) Human Rights and Protection Group.
“Radio continues to play an important role in access to information in Somalia,” she said, “and having access to these rich archives would bring recent history into the homes of many Somalis.”
