Voice of America

If anyone would have told me only six months ago, that a Republican President would push to end the work of the Voice of America along with similar outlets such as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty I would not have believed it. Yet, this is what has been happening under the MAGA administration of Donald Trump. Currently, only the Federal court system stands between his folly and the cause of freedom that had been synonymous with the United States of America for almost a century if not longer. It is mind- boggling to stand by and watch the current administration destroy the international reputation and political standing of our nation day after day by turning its back on fundamental aspects of who we are and what we represent in the world.

Growing up in the 1970s and 1980s in West Berlin, my generation looked to the US for all things “cool” and we somehow came to understand that only in America could one be truly free. This view was certainly somewhat “rose-colored” in hindsight and would be slightly qualified as we grew older and understood geo-political complexities better, yet the core belief never truly shifted. To understand our mindset, it is important to understand our daily reality; we lived surrounded by a 12 ft. tall concrete wall that was fortified with barbed wire, attack dogs, tank barriers, mine fields and armed guards with a “shot-to-kill” order. This barrier was further supported by 20 divisions of the USSR’s Red Army troops and legions of KGB agents (Putin being one of them in the mid-1980s). And the threat was real, we knew of Soviet tanks rolling against German workers in 1953, against Hungarian Socialist reformers in 1956, against Czech students in 1968 and threatened against Polish union workers in 1981. We knew about spy exchanges on the “Glienicker Bruecke” (of Bridge of Spies fame) and in 1985, a US Army Maj. was shot by Soviet troops in East Germany while conducting a routine patrol. But despite all these events, we felt relatively safe in our walled in enclave of freedom, our island with the Red Sea of Communist dictatorships. This sense of security was based on the commitment to West Berlin and NATO by United States and her Western Allies. For us young people, freedom as a lived concept was largely advocated and supported by American cultural outreach. Key to its success was the Radio Liberty/The Voice of America. In Berlin we listened to it and to RIAS (Radio in the American Sector) which was founded shortly after the end of WWII and worked through a German American collaboration agreement.

In addition to radio, we had access to the America House, a modern building with a tile mosaic of the American flag on its front facade. Here, we had free access to American movies, books, tapes, magazines and cultural events. We had a concert hall paid for by the American people (the Congress Hall) and we had a new university, modeled after and supported by the United States of America, the Free University of Berlin & the JFK Institute of American Studies. In the pre-cable TV and pre-internet days, when TV consisted of 2 or 3 public channels and VCRs were still a luxury, music was our main outlet. RIAS and Voice of America shaped our consciousness, it kept us up to date with music trends, allowed us to call in our requests and made us feel, that despite the wall and the Communist zone that surrounded us, we were nevertheless part of the free world. RIAS would have transmitters all along the wall so that East German kids and teenagers could listen in as well and immediately after the Berlin Wall had gone up in 1961, RIAS would announce personal announcements on the air which were in reality coded messages to connect West Berliners with their East Berlin family from whom they were completely cut off until mail and phone services were restored years later. While this particular feature took place before my time, we all knew about it. And we were part of its later day equivalent, when RIAS and Voice of America sponsored open air concerts near the Berlin Wall where East Berlin teenagers could hear from across the wall. (Anyone who has ever listened the lyrics of David Bowie’s “Heroes” can understand the mindset of the time. He lived in West Berlin in the late 1970s). While most of my contemporaries never made it to the US, unlike myself, who left in 1983 to live in upstate NY, they were part of several generations who remember the broadcasts and additional services, as instrumental in forming their world view of freedom and the rule of law, and the significant role that the United States of America has played for decades in representing hope and success, without which struggle of any kind ultimatley remains futile.

I also remember being in Prague in the early 1980s on a trip behind the Iron Curtain with my father, where I met young Czechs who listened to Radio Free Europe clandestinely as it was against the law to do so, and we found ourselves discussing contemporary music and culture in a Prague Cafe using a mix of German/English/Czech. They had come of age in the post-1968 Czechoslovakia and lived in a drab and oppressive Communist society which made their enthusiasm for all things American that much more significant. One of them told me that they would go and look at the American flag waving over the US mission in Prague as it was the closest, they could get to a real-life emblem of hope for their eventual liberation from Communist rule.

While I have not been to the Middle East or Southeast Asia, I think it is safe to presume that the Voice of America and its affiliated outlets can and have served a similar purpose in those embattled regions as was accomplished during the Cold War in Europe. In many ways they might even be more important as the US has not been an unequivocal harbinger of peace and prosperity there in the past two decades as she was largely seen in post-WWII Europe.

Thus, it escapes my comprehension what motivates our current president to abolish these institutions. His campaign promise was to make America great again. While I never thought that we were not already great, I can appreciate the goal to shore up our global leadership position in the post-Covid19 21st century in opposition to Chinese and Russian dictatorial aggression. However, to do, he needs the buy-in and support of our allies and the majority of the American people. While not a magic bullet, Voice of America and Radio Liberty are proven and successful means to disseminate a positive message of what the longest functioning representative democracy in moder times has accomplished and what it means to all other freedom-loving people across the globe.

Yet, the president deliberately dismantles a relatively low budget media outlet that has always pursued its only mission, sharing America’s promise and her greatest accomplishments with the world. That seems not only very short-sighted but ultimately un-American. For anyone who truly believes in the MAGA message of President Trump, and all of other Americans, this is one cause where we can come together and speak truth to power: The Voice of America needs to stay on the air!