Summary: In Arabic the word tahrir means liberation; the idea behind WBAIrsquo;s ldquo;Radio Tahrirrdquo; is to liberate Arabic and Muslim voices from mediation and present them as they are. ldquo;It is our voice,rdquo; says executive producer Barbara Aziz. An anthropologist by training, she says Radio Tahrir is radio for Arab and Muslim Americans ndash; as well as by them. ldquo;We have no non-Arabs in production, so itrsquo;s a selection of material that we make from our own community.rdquo; Radio Tahrir is a weekly hour-long magazine program that steers clear from what Aziz calls ldquo;hotrdquo; news, instead featuring pieces that focus on Arab and Muslim thought, art and life. Aziz says all of the people who work on Tahrir are volunteers and the program takes the training of its volunteers, especially its young volunteers, very seriously. A Community Speaks For Itself ldquo;It seems more and more are in journalism,rdquo; Aziz says. ldquo;Journalism is fortunately, finally, attracting Arabs and Muslims, which it did not do 15 to 20 years ago. So Irsquo;m very pleased with that.rdquo; Shersquo;s pleased with that because she thinks people within the Arab and Muslim communities need to learn to create and produce content if they are going to be able to control how the world sees them. Thatrsquo;s another reason Aziz only accepts Arab or Muslim volunteers to work on Tahrir. ldquo;I accept people who are from our own community because we need to run our own shows, we need to learn communication skills hellip; we need to produce,rdquo; she says. ldquo;And as you know I have issues with Muslim Voices because you do not, as I understand, have Muslim producers, which I think is very unfortunate.rdquo; (There are, and have been since the beginning, Muslims involved in various aspects of the production of both the Muslim Voices podcast and its sister Crash Course in Islam.) From Anthropologist To Journalist Aziz dove into journalism after spending years in the field as an anthropologist. She did much of her work on Tibetan culture and had reached a point where she says felt like shersquo;d accomplished what she could. For her, Aziz says, the transition from anthropologist to journalist was, in a way, a natural one. ldquo;I wanted to work with my own people, the Arab people,rdquo; she says. ldquo;So I decided to jump in, to use my training as an anthropologist and my love of my people to, first of all, education myself and, second, to educate others.rdquo; You can listen to Azizrsquo;s work with Radio Tahrir and hear a live stream of the program at its website, radiotahrir.org.
