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For just over nine years before I moved to the United States I ran my own weekly radio show on a public access station in New Zealand.
The show was basically about wrestling (the Olympic variety,) but I also threw in bits about other combat sports such as judo and mixed martial arts. Hey, we were all minority sports – too small for the commercial stations to spend time covering.
The show was a great fit for the station, which was dedicated to providing the smaller groups within the community with a voice, provided of course, the program maker met regular broadcasting standards.
Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand, with a population of around 175,000, and several large (and some not so large) ethnic communities. As a result, a lot of the programs broadcast on the station were made by members of different cultural backgrounds.
The station had quite a radical programming philosophy too.
For example, the programs made by the local Jewish and Palestinian communities were played back-to-back, as indeed were the programs of almost any diametrically opposite groups. The religious community, for example, had to put up with the local atheist society’s show right in the middle of their Sunday worship broadcasts. The Serbians and Croatians were slotted next to each other too!
In (from memory) my third year of broadcasting, I was elected onto the station’s board of governors as one of the program makers representatives. This was definitely one of those experiences I absolutely hated at the time, but afterwards was really pleased I did it because it did so much to broaden my horizons - or to “see how the other half lives” as my mother used to say!
There were 12 of us on the board. We had one (protestant) Christian minister, two relatively normal older catholic ladies, two raving anti-Christians, two Indians (from India – not Native Americans) who would often argue with each other even when they agreed, a very charming older Iranian lady (who, by the way, was a Muslim) and a couple of others from different ethnic groups.
One of the anti-Christians claimed to belong to some druidic type religion, and he would actually dress up in next to nothing in the middle of winter and go out and dance around trees. For his day job he was a professor of mathematics at the local university, which I took as positive proof that too much intelligence can be just as bad as too little!
I remember once he told me he liked me because he thought I was weird. I wanted to tell him the feeling was mutual but I wasn’t totally sure I liked him that much.
It really was a crazy mixed-up bunch sitting at that table, in every sense of the word!
Oh, and there was me too, of course.
I’d have to say the Iranian lady was the pick of the bunch. She (and her sister) would always be the first to help if the station ran any kind of cultural or charitable event. It didn’t matter what religion, ethnic group, or charitable cause it was in support of. These two ladies were always there, chipping in, with a smile on their faces, and a cheerful word for anyone who wanted to chat.
The rest of us had the opportunity to learn a lot from the example those two ladies set!
The “ethnic” people on the board really liked me, because I always went out of my way to include news from around the world in my wrestling show. With wrestling being an Olympic sport, and over 140 countries falling under the Olympic wrestling umbrella I had access to results (and even interviews) from all over the world, and I certainly used that to build a wider audience than just wrestling enthusiasts.
Unfortunately, the fact that I was relatively popular (and “neutral”) amongst all these different groups, meant that I was soon volunteered to serve on the station’s complaints sub-committee. Basically, if anyone ever complained about the content of another program, our little sub-committee had to sit in judgment.
We had one New Zealander who was constantly complaining about minor things he heard (or thought he heard) on the one particular program produced by the Jewish community, and he always had books backing up his claims that this-that-or-the-other-thing presented on that show was some kind of evidence of his perceived “evil true nature” of the Jewish people.
Of course, once any complaint came in, we were required to investigate etc. It never took very long to determine that the author of the book presented in evidence by this individual was some nutter who should never have been allowed to have their work published in the first place, so we always dismissed his complaint. He then always appealed to the New Zealand Broadcasting Commission (NZBC) against our decision, and they always dismissed his appeal.
Ultimately the NZBC got fed up with him and threatened to take some form of legal action. I have no idea what, but it certainly shut him up!
I spent two of my nine-plus years with the radio station serving in that capacity. It was definitely hard work, and had its moments - good, bad and sometimes even just plain ugly.
It was the ideal opportunity, however, to study first hand how different people act, and react, towards each other.
In fact, during my entire involvement with the station, the biggest problems almost always boiled down to a New Zealander pushing their own little wheelbarrow full of prejudice.
The stupidity of intolerance towards people of other cultures or beliefs is definitely only contagious if we allow ourselves to be stupid. Sometimes it can be hard work finding out what someone else really thinks, especially if there is a language barrier or cultural bridge involved.
The most worthwhile rewards usually require the biggest effort though.
by FRANK SHANLY
frank@news-banner.com
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