Shoot the Messenger? Or the BBC...
OK, I admit it, from the moment I heard about this programme I was ready to hate it. From its original title:
F*ck Black People, to its opening line: "Whenever I think about it, everything bad that has ever happened to me has involved a black person.". But most of all I was ready to hate it because white pundits, from newspaper journalists to radio presenters were saying that it was an important drama that every black person needed to see - we’ll decide that for ourselves thank you very much. I hated the hype, hated the concept and hated, to be honest the fact that our ‘issues’ were being debated so publicly.
But you know what? Having watched it last night I can honestly say that this is a thoughtful, well-acted drama that I would gladly encourage my friends to see. There was a strong storyline and much that I could identify with culturally - and let’s face it there is such a paucity of black representation on TV that sometimes you have to take those cultural references where you can get them. Of course I still have issues with aspects of it, but then I do with most dramas that I watch.
The story: Joseph Pascale, a young black man living in London decides to quit his financially rewarding job as a computer programmer to serve his community as a school teacher to a class of poor black adolescents. He is determined to bring salvation to his students through enforcing a strict class regime with tough penalties of detentions and extra curricular work, particularly for black pupils. One of his most reluctant students is Germal who views Joseph as an over zealous middle-class nerd whose demeanour is more ‘white’ than black.Germal falsely accuses Joseph of assault, a move that whips the black community into a frenzy. Joseph is sacked and branded a criminal and a sell-out. Then Joseph’s induced psychological trauma sees him decline into madness and he ends up treated in a mental asylum, and upon his release becomes destitute and homeless with a persistent hatred against blacks.
David Oyelowo’s acting in the lead role was a revelation – as was
Charles Mnene’s who played Germal. But having said all that, let’s not pretend that this drama was balanced. It relied heavily on portraying black people in a negative light and rolled out all the stereotypes: the single mother with numerous babyfathers; the tartily dressed woman that was more interested in maternity leave than the job that may have been on offer; black people in prison; young black males failing at school, black men with mental health issues… And really that is the nub of the issue. When will the BBC – or any of the mainstream TV channels - be happy to show the bigger picture? The black experience is about a lot more than underachievement, self-hatred and criminality.
This drama was hyped to hell. When programmers are as ready to invest in dramas with positive representations of us, maybe programmes such as this will be accepted more readily. From lead actor
David Oyelowo to writer
Sharon Foster the mantra has been that this drama portrayed issues that our community needs to debate. Maybe so, though let’s not pretend that in some quarters these debates are not being had. The thing is it wasn’t just our community watching – and as Ligali, the African media monitoring organisation, have said this drama may have played into the hands of racists and right-wingers. That’s not to say we let them set the agenda. Just that the BBC are doing us no favours by investing so heavily in showing just one side of the story.
Talkin' Politics with Ngugi wa Thiongo
I’ve finally finished reading the latest novel by the Kenyan writer/playwright
Ngugi wa Thiongo. It’s a huge read but certainly worth the effort. It’s called
Wizard of the Crow and is set in the fictional African republic of Aburiria, it tells the story of a ruler who has surrounded himself with comically sycophantic cabinet ministers. Put very simply it is a book about third world dictators – and how they have been nurtured by the West. His publishers are billing it as an African epic, and actually that’s not very far from the truth. Still, I prefer the author’s own description: ‘I would actually call it a global epic from Africa.’ he told me when I had the pleasure of meeting him recently. ‘I set it in a fictional country in Africa but its landscape and geography encompasses Asia, Africa, Europe, America and the Caribbean. It touches on all of those countries.’
I met him last week in a small restaurant in Soho. He was on a visit to promote his new book and I had been invited to interview him. I must say he is the most inspirational artist I have ever had the pleasure of spending time with. Of course, I knew what he’d been through in defence of freedom of speech and well, freedom of art. I was looking forward to meeting him, but I could never have predicted how charismatic and just plain inspirational he would be.
Ngugi wa Thiongo has been in exile now for more than twenty years. Before that he was imprisoned without trial in Kenya because of the political nature of his work. Even when he returned there a few years ago he and his wife were brutally attacked by representatives of those that wish to silence him. This he talks about freely when we meet. His wife Njeeri was sexually assaulted he tells me as he takes my pen and paper and writes her name, he wants everyone to know what happened to them during what he terms ‘an attempted political assassination’.
We meet to talk about his book but both quickly go off message. He wants to hear a little about the baby I gave birth to just two months ago, I want to hear about his politics. I’d read that in his early years her was a Fanonist, I was keen to see just where he placed himself politically now. The way he talks you would think that every writer of colour was inspired by
Frantz Fanon back then. ‘A lot of writers were impacted by his book
The Wretched of the Earth. Here for the first time we found a text that analysed the third world in a way that made sense and analysed what was happening there. He articulated politically what is happening to us. As third world peoples this was an important. The importance of Fanon was he showed the importance of the third world in a global context and made sense of out of our global experiences.’
It was during this period of radicalisation that he decided that he would write his future works in his native language Gukuyu. ‘My first novels including
Weep not Child were actually written in English. The realisation came later that African writers writing in English are missing out on touching their own communities by not writing in their own language. That realisation came to me in the 1970s.’
I also talk to him a little about what I perceive as the lack of solidarity with black writers today. He listens with patience, like an elderly relative amused by the impatience of youth. Then he tells me about the times he spent with
CLR James,
George Lamming,
Chinua Achebe and other literary greats. Not to boast, but to put writers of today in some kind of context. He explains that in the late 50s, 60s etc. these writers ‘became very prominent with the wave of immigration. There were waves of writers from Africa and the Caribbean. Wave after wave. They didn’t simply emerge; they came out of the movements and political situation at the time.’
Does he still see himself as a revolutionary? I ask, though not sure I want to hear the answer. ‘Art is a revolutionary act,’ he tells me, ‘artists are by nature revolutionary.’ Finally I ask if he’ll ever stop writing. It was his answer to this that inspired me the most. ‘Art is like an expression we have, like singing or breathing or listening to stories. I don’t think anyone on earth will stop human beings from singing. They could cut off the tongue but the melody will still develop in the head.’
Wizard of the Crow is published by Random House and is out now
