Radio and dissent in Afghanistan

In the second conversation of the Borderlines series History Sounds, we learn about the history of radio broadcasting, live performances, and resistance in Afghanistan in the 1960s and 1970s with doctor Mejgan Massoumi.

Check out Massoumi’s recent article “Soundwaves of Dissent: Resistance Through Persianate Cultural Production in Afghanistan” in the Iranian Studies journal.

You can also listen to the conversation on Spotify and Apple.

Coming up: Andrew Simon will tell us about cassettes and mass culture in Egypt.

The songs and recordings you heard during the conversation are:

• History Sounds Intro: Huna al-Qahira, Munir Murad ( هنا القاهرة - محدش شاف)

• Ay tāza gul tū zīnat-i gūlzār-i kīstī?, by Khānūm Zhīlā and Muḥammad Rafīʿ

• Farīda Anwarī reciting one of Mawlana’s poems

• Bemaram O Ghair As To, by Aḥmad Ẓāhir

• Zindagī Ākhir Sar Āyad, by Aḥmad Ẓāhir

Further readings and resources:

• John Baily, War, Exile and the Music of Afghanistan: The Ethnographer’s Tale(Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2015)

• John Baily. Can You Stop the Birds Singing? The Censorship of Music in Afghanistan. Copenhagen: Freemuse, 2003. 

• Lorraine. Sakata, Afghanistan Encounters with Music and Friends. Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers, 2013.

• Ahmad Sarmast, A Survey of the History of Music in Afghanistan from Ancient Times to 2000 A.D., with Special Reference to Art Music from c. 1000 A.D. (Melbourne: Monash University Press, 2004)

• Mark Slobin, Music in the Culture of Northern Afghanistan (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1976).

• ʿAbd al-Wahhāb Madadī, “Taḥawul-i Mūsiqī-yi Afghānistān Dar Qarn-i Akhīr” [The Transformation of Music in Afghanistan in the Last Century]. Iran Nameh, Special Issue on Afghanistan, 22, no. 1–2 (Spring and Summer 2005): 109–16.

• Malyar, N. Tārīkh-i Rādīyū-i Afghānistān [History of Radio in Afghanistan]. Kabul: University of Kabul, 1977.

• Aḥmad Siyar Nūrmal, Aḥmad Ẓāhir: Nawā-Yi Māndahʹgār: Kāmilʹtarīn Kitāb Dar Mawrid-I Hunarmand-i Jāwīdān Aḥmad Ẓāhir Wa Surūdahʹhāyish [Ahmad Zahir: The Lasting Voice: The Most Complete Book of His Biography and Songs]. Kabul: Intishārāt-i ʻĀzam, 2013.

• Shir Mohammad Rawan, “Modern Mass Media and Traditional Communication in Afghanistan.” Political Communication 19, no. 2 (2002): 159. 

• Andrew Skuse,  “Radio, Politics, and Trust in Afghanistan: A Social History of Broadcasting.” Gazette: The International Journal for Communication Studies 64, no. 3 (2002): 267–79.

Interview and sound design by Olga Verlato.