RADIO FREE EUROPE

If I say Radio Free Europe what do you think about?

Personally I immediately “hear” Michael Stipe’s voice on the notes of the song taken from what is their turning point with Murmur, recently worth sixth place in the ranking of the 100 biggest debut singles of all time, despite the fans’ diatribe to determine whether the original version is better in respect of the one remixed two years later will probably never end, but that’s another story.

This is the third time I quote R.E.M. after What time is the end of the world?  and Shiny happy people,  apart from fact that I’m keen on them, why?

Because Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) established at the beginning of the Cold War to transmit uncensored news and information to audiences behind the Iron Curtain, played a significant role in the collapse of communism and the rise of democracies in post-communist Europe.
Today, RFE/RL is one of the most comprehensive media organizations in the world, producing radio, Internet and television programs in countries where a free press is either banned by the government or nut fully established.
It was founded in 1950 with the aim of offering at least an alternative, a possibility to evaluate a different vision.
Yet 70 years later we seem to have forgotten the importance of plurality of expression since episodes of censorship are increasingly occurring.

The latest has been against a radio: or rather the Radio Radio YouTube channel, which was closed with a decidedly strange dynamic, as explained in detail by the author Fabio Duranti.

Why do we consider people unable to face alternative thoughts? Why the censorship instead of arguing and possibly refuting with well-founded explanations?

The famous phrase I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it wrongly attributed to Voltaire and actually written by Evelyn Beatrice Hall, remains essential in its concept in my opinion.