The Radio program That Journalizes the Civil Society

We have talked to Çağlar Karakış who presents a radio program called Civil Society Talks every Thursday on Harman Radio, about his program and his standpoint to civil society.

Where did the idea of creating such a program come from?

The radio is a very important mass medium. With the increase of urbanization, especially with the time spent in traffic, the radio became even more important. This was the charming part for us as it meant we could reach more people. Another reason is that it’s a difficult job. Difficult but also addictive. You are talking about stuff but you have no idea who listens to you. At that moment you tell the things that are right for you and hope it reaches out to more people. Civil Society meetings air on every Thursday between 8.30-9.30. When people stuck in the traffic, it’s our main goal and source of motivation to tell them about there are still people out there who believe in world peace.

What if I ask, why the civil society talks?

It would be better to open up the question as why civil society and why we do it as talk shows. I’ve been inside the civil society since 2004; therefore I have worked both voluntarily and professionally on subjects of teens, kids, elderly people, handicapped people, environment and many more issues. In other words, I share things from the places I’ve set my foot on and the things I’ve involved with. Apart from that, I have faith in civil society. If there’s going to be an improvement in this country I believe its dynamo will be civil society. I believe that the more we strengthen this field, the more we get closer to solve the issues of our country. Now let’s talk about why we do this as a talk show. We talk with people about their work for social benefit without labeling them as better or worse. Turkish Language Association defines the word “chatting”; having a friendly conversation with people, conversation, company, chit-chat”. Respecting every word in this definition, we are talking about the good things we can do in civil society. We do this for a more integrative life of complete civil society.

What’s the benefit of doing a program about civil society agenda?

There are tens of hundreds CSOs in Turkey. People fight for what they believe in both voluntarily and professionally. I think that practicing advocacy work, empowerment work or aid-based work do not seem to matter in practice if it covers the basic values of civil society. The important thing is that opening a space for people to find a solution when they see a problem in the frame of active citizenship so we are opening a humble space. We say you are doing the most important job in the world to strengthen the young ones, to give water to the animals on hot summer days, to fight for more sustainable environment, to give a bowl of soup to the homeless at night, to work for check and balance system to gain strength in Turkey, to fight for Kurdish, Romans to have more democratic rights… Come tell us the works you have done so we can be the partners of your good works. There’s no point in discovering the world we live in over and over again. Tell us so we can share it with other people, so they will not fall into the same pit again and again. In the program, civil society organizations tell about the good work they have done or the things that went bad. By this means, we have an experience pool. You can listen to these experiences both offline and online. We want people to benefit from what we call “voiced library” in which people can work in any field they want. One of our goals is to make civil society workers more visible. It’s an actual profession although people mostly don’t know it is. And these people doing great jobs, unfortunately most of us are unaware of. We want these people feel special about their jobs and also we want society to know more about it.

Regarding your radio program, how do you evaluate your current situation?

You know that civil society is a fresh oneiromancy, back in the day these formations were called NGOs. Especially in 1970s the word “organization” had a negative impact, although I don’t agree. With the 1990s, these structures had begun to be mentioned as civil organizations. From its beginning years to its present days, CSOs have not been able to detect perceptions that have to be constantly distanced. Unfortunately, becoming the rate of a member of any CSO in Turkey cannot compete with the ones that are referred to as developed countries. On such negative statement the statutory decrees issued after the July 15 coup attempt took civil society back to many years, although its been said there were no other options in the circumstances of the day. Of course, we are talking about a coup attempt which we all damn and everybody is on the same side on this matter. However, civil society organizations -which were already on unsatisfactory, suffered greatly after these developments.  Becoming a member of an association or a foundation became something even more frightening. My biggest critic is that despite the fact that two years have passed since the coup attempt, the solutions to relive civil society have not yet been produced at the desired level. Today, civil society is presented as a dangerous definition whether by the government or the opposition. When we invite our guests to our radio show, inside from social life, we do not invite people via near or far away any parties’ but throughout the value of their work. Otherwise, we can’t have a chance to strengthen the civil society.

Do you have any other prospective works in this field?

At Harman radio we are open minded as of publication management. There has not been anything we didn’t want to happen so far. That’s why I’m grateful to them. We created a zone of 3-4 minute called “Civil Society Activist” within the program. In this field, we air 3-4 minutes of short profiles of civil society workers with their own voices, so they can tell about their valuable work. And other young people can be a part of this experience. The state of emergency ties our hands. We want to make street interviews about our guests of the week so we have more people participate in the program and we can listen to their thoughts. These are not so easy on these days. I hope that, thanks to Civil Pages, more people can reach us and give us a chance to include their valuable work in the program. In this process, we also learn a lot. The program teaches us new things every week. We want this learning to continue forever.