Radio Free Europe Saved Us. Now It Needs Saving

I have known Radio Free Europe since I was six. In the bedroom of a small communist apartment in Constanta, a city port at the Black Sea, into the dark days of the communist dictatorship, my father used to take an old radio and place it on the cold heater. He would raise the antenna and turn a large button back and forth until we could hear it: “Aici Radio Europa Liberă.” (“Here is Radio Free Europe”). The sound of it brings tears to my eyes even now. (You can hear it in the video below, the music is the famous Romanian rhapsody by the composer George Enescu).

I can still relive those moments. I remember the feeling - a mixture of fear, nervousness - because we were doing something deemed illegal by Ceausescu. But there was also the sense we were doing something meaningful. My parents instructed me not to ever tell anyone we were listening to Radio Free Europe because the Securitate (State Security – the political police) would come for them.

Radio Free Europe was our lifeline to freedom and to the belief that dictatorship will eventually end, and liberation will come from the West. There was someone out there in the West hearing us, talking to us, we were not on our own. Radio Free Europe meant information, connection to the democratic world, and mostly hope.

This is my story. But there are hundreds and thousands of such stories, some of them horrific. For millions and millions of people living under tyranny, Voice of America, Radio Free Europa, Radio Free Asia, and Radio Liberty meant hope. Silencing them feels like sacrilege. They are priceless and their contribution to people and humanity cannot be measured by an amount of dollars.

This is not about saving money. It is not about ideology. It is about democracy. The administration is deliberately dismantling the soft power tools that made US great and unique throughout decades, while presenting itself to the world as a power that no longer cares for people in need, for the oppressed and the hungry. Shutting down an entire radio network that championed democracy is making our adversaries, Russia, China, and others, cheer. Is this what we really want? Is this what the American people voted for?

The decision to cut the funding is being challenged and I can only hope it is reversed. And if that doesn't happen in the US, I think Europe needs to step up and rally behind the initiative of the Czech Republic to build a “platform of countries” to support Radio Free Europe and preserve its legacy.

Here is the story of Stanislav Aseyev, and Ukrainian philosopher tortured by Russians for his reporting for Radio Liberty, made available to us via Timothy Snyder’s Subsrack platform:

2+2=5