Somalia races to save Radio Mogadishu’s fading archive of national history

In a race against time and decay, Somalia's public broadcaster, Radio Mogadishu, is working to preserve its vast archive, a treasure trove of the nation's 20th-century history. Thousands of reel-to-reel tapes, stacked on shelves in an air-conditioned room, hold fragments of news bulletins, speeches, music, and voices that once filled the airwaves, some dating back to the early 1950s.

Archivist Abdiqadir Geedi Robleh is part of a small team meticulously digitizing these recordings before the magnetic tape deteriorates completely. Each reel represents a piece of Somalia's collective memory, from the music of prominent singers like Mohamed Mooge Liban to historical dramas and cultural programs. Robleh describes the archive as "the world’s largest store of Somali language music, culture, dramas and everything else," currently inaccessible to the public.

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This is the world’s largest store of Somali language music, culture, dramas and everything else, and at the moment it is locked away from the public in a kind of prison. We’re working to preserve it but also open it up in future to the public.

Founded in 1951 during the Italian colonial era, Radio Mogadishu grew into Somalia's most influential public broadcaster, reaching audiences across East Africa and beyond. It played a significant role in broadcasting in Somali and other languages, embodying a spirit of pan-Africanism reminiscent of Radio Cairo during the Nasser era. Despite a brief period under warlord control in the 1990s, it has remained a vital source of news and a repository of national history.

This preservation effort has gained new momentum this year. In June, Somalia's information ministry, in collaboration with the UNESCO regional office for Eastern Africa, hosted a workshop in Mogadishu. The workshop brought together archivists from across the country to train them in cataloging the archive's contents for potential registration with UNESCO's Memory of the World program. "Protecting this knowledge isn’t just relevant for Somalia, but it is relevant for everyone," stated Guilherme Canela, a senior official from UNESCO.

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Protecting this knowledge isn’t just relevant for Somalia, but it is relevant for everyone.