Silencing a People Twice: Why the Attempt to Replace Sidama Radio Is a Historic Mistake

 The newsThe news that Sidama Radio—one of the oldest and most important community radios in Ethiopia—is slated to be replaced by a hospital construction is not merely administrative information. It is a cultural alarm. For me, it is also deeply personal. As a journalist who once worked at Sidama Radio as a university student, producing sports and international music programs, this decision breaks my heart—and it should trouble anyone who cares about cultural rights, history, and justice.Sidama Radio is not just a building. It is not just a frequency. It is memory, resistance, dignity, and voice.

A Radio That Defied Discrimination 

Sidama Radio is one of the first community radios ever established in Ethiopia, created at a time when community media was neither fashionable nor politically convenient. It was built with the support of Irish development aid and, more importantly, through the vision and courage of Sidama intellectuals who understood that a people without a voice are a people made invisible.

For generations, Sidama people were told a cruel lie: that their language was not fit for the radio. That if Sidamu Afoo were spoken on air, it would “break the radio.” This was not ignorance—it was linguistic discrimination, designed to push Sidama people away from their own language and force dependence on others for even the most basic information.

Sidama Radio shattered that lie.

It proved that Sidamu Afoo is not only suitable for broadcasting, but powerful—capable of informing, educating, uniting, and inspiring. Through news, culture, music, sports, and public discussion, Sidama Radio became a symbol of linguistic liberation.

More Than Media: A Cultural Institution

For years, Sidama Radio has served as:

• A voice for the Sidama people

• A platform for Sidama culture, music, and oral traditions

• A space for youth development and journalism training

• A bridge between rural communities and public information

• A rare example of true community-centered media in Ethiopia

Long before “cultural preservation” became a slogan, Sidama Radio was actively preserving culture—daily, consistently, and accessibly.

Replacing such an institution with another structure, no matter how socially important that structure may be, is not development. It is cultural displacement.

Development Without Destruction Is Possible

No one argues against hospitals. Health infrastructure matters. Lives matter.

But the framing of this decision presents a false and dangerous choice: health versus culture, as if the two cannot coexist. Why must cultural institutions always be the first to be sacrificed? Why is it always community media, libraries, theaters, and cultural centers that are treated as expendable?

A society that destroys its cultural voice in the name of development is not progressing—it is erasing itself.

Hospitals can be built elsewhere. Frequencies cannot simply be rebuilt. Trust cannot be relocated. History cannot be reconstructed once demolished.

A National and Moral Responsibility

Sidama Radio is not only Sidama heritage—it is Ethiopian media history. As one of the earliest community radios in the country, it represents a milestone in democratizing information and promoting linguistic inclusion.

To dismantle it now, without transparent public consultation and without a guaranteed plan for preservation, is to repeat the very injustices that the radio was created to resist.

This decision contradicts:

• Ethiopia’s constitutional recognition of linguistic and cultural rights

• The global principle of protecting community media

• The moral obligation to preserve institutions built through sacrifice and vision

A Call to Stop This Action—Now

I call on the Sidama Regional State, cultural authorities, media institutions, intellectuals, and the public to immediately halt any plan that threatens the existence of Sidama Radio and its studios.

Preserve it.
Protect it.
Upgrade it.
Honor it.

Do not silence a people twice—first by denying their language, and now by dismantling the institution that proved that denial wrong.

Sidama Radio survived discrimination, doubt, and neglect. It should not fall victim to administrative convenience.

Once a voice is destroyed, it does not echo back.