Hello and welcome to The Long Wave. I am writing to you fully refreshed following a whole two hours’ sleep after watching the US election. This week, as one Black woman’s electoral fortunes collapse in the United States, a Black woman in the UK, Kemi Badenoch, has made a breakthrough. I spoke to Eromo Egbejule, our west Africa correspondent, about how her election was received in Nigeria, and how Black representation in politics is often a more complicated story than it looks. But first, here’s the weekly roundup.
Weekly roundup
Brazil’s powerful African legacy | A new book by our South America correspondent Tiago Rogero explores how descendants of enslaved Africans helped to shape and build Brazil. The role Black social movements played in transforming Brazil into a democracy is an often overlooked aspect of Latin American history.
Botswana’s seismic vote | After nearly six decades in power, last week the Botswana Democratic party president, Mokgweetsi Masisi, conceded defeat in the general election. The landslide victory by Duma Boko, the leader of the Umbrella for Democratic Change, comes amid a growing backlash from young people across the continent, many of whom are discontented with economic hardship and rejecting parties that have governed since independence.
UK civil rights activist dies | Paul Stephenson, who rallied thousands of people for a 60-day boycott in Bristol, England, in 1963 over a bus company’s refusal to hire Black or Asian drivers, has died at the age of 87. He spoke to the Guardian in 2020 about how he helped to desegregate Britain.
Equatorial Guinea sextape scandal | Videos alleging to portray a high-ranking Equatorial Guinean civil servant engaging in sex acts in government offices have leaked online and gone viral. The vice-president, Teodoro Obiang Mangue, said the footage reportedly showing Baltasar Ebang Engonga having sex with various women “denigrated the image of the country” and ordered a crackdown to prevent further workplace romps.
British poet reveals ‘identity crisis’ | James Massiah, a prominent poet in London, UK, has spoken to Lanre Bakare about the “harmful” realisation that a character in Coco Mellors’ bestselling novel Blue Sisters is based on him. Massiah says it has caused him a “mini identity crisis”.
In depth
Kemi Badenoch has been elected as leader of the British Conservative party and it’s a big deal. Badenoch is the first Black leader, and first Black female leader, of any British political party. But her election has left me cold. Which, at first glance, is odd because on paper we share a lot. We were both raised in African countries, we didn’t attend the sort of schools most of our British peers did, and we really like knotless braids.
But Badenoch gives the impression that she isn’t looking for other Black people, or even Nigerians, to feel any kinship towards her. Or as Eromo put it, she seems “focused on the white part of her constituency”. Badenoch’s brand is “anti-wokeness”. She has a hardline on multiculturalism and diversity, saying “not all cultures are valid” when referencing who should be allowed to settle in the UK, and has dismissed the idea that British wealth was built on colonialism.
When asked how she felt about being the first Black leader of a British party, Badenoch said: “We live in a multiracial country, and that is great, but we have to work very hard to make sure that it doesn’t become something divisive, where people see themselves as being part of groups, rather than all being British.” Well, she may be dismayed to find that plenty of Nigerians are claiming and celebrating her as a Nigerian prospering in the UK, a japa success story, despite her distancing.
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A one-way pride?
Her election was a “thing of pride, not only for Nigeria but for Africa and the Black race as a whole”, said the pan-Yoruba sociocultural and political organisation Afenifere. Nigerians are very patriotic people, Eromo says. “They love everything about Nigeria, apart from the leaders. Outside Nigeria, we are all Nigerians. This is going to be the prevailing thought about Badenoch.” And her rightwing politics chime with the values of the country and the Yoruba ethnic group of her heritage. “A very conservative people” is how Eromo describes them, “very big on respect and conservative family values, and strong communal ties”.
This is despite the fact that Badenoch is often disdainful about Nigeria and describes it like a fever dream. Whereas other Black British MPs have celebrated their heritage, Badenoch is less interested in doing so. Interestingly, when she was trying to break into politics in 2010, Badenoch played up her background and appealed to Nigerian voters in the UK to help her get into office and “support a Nigerian who is trying to improve our national image”. Good times.
“She lived in Nigeria until she was 16,” Eromo says, but the country is mostly absent from her public identity. She rarely shares fond memories of the food or culture she grew up in. Badenoch has mostly described Nigeria as a cautionary tale that has shaped her politics – she told the Daily Mail that she did not want the UK to “become like the place I ran away from”. And perhaps this is justified – when Badenoch made – to her credit – an intervention on #EndSars, she wrote: “As for my encounters with Nigerian police … that’s a story for another day.”
Badenoch also claimed she had a “very rough” upbringing in Nigeria, but she was “definitely middle class or lower upper class”, Eromo says. Badenoch attended the prestigious International School of Lagos, and is the daughter of a doctor and a respected lecturer. The former vice-president Yemi Osinbajo is her maternal first cousin once removed. Still, she has said that coming to the UK and flipping burgers in McDonald’s “made her working class”. Hmm.
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‘We wish her well’
Despite the excitement, Eromo says the reaction to Badenoch’s election has been twofold, with a cooling on the horizon. There is a growing backlash from progressives and young people against so-called Yoruba supremacy, as members of the ethnic group have traditionally been viewed as the ruling elite in Nigeria and “decided the collective fate of the country”. But, more specifically, her anti-immigration politics are off-putting. Eromo says a lot of young Nigerians have left in the past five years, and if they see that their suffering in the country is being “consolidated by a Yoruba person in the UK”, then things will change. “People will still connect with her,” he says, “but the more she [talks], the more people dislike her.” Given how notoriously abrasive Badenoch is, noted for her countless digs at others, it doesn’t seem that being likable will be much of a concern for her. She doesn’t have a record of welcoming criticism, saying in an interview once that she doesn’t “need people whose only experience of being Black is being an ethnic minority in the UK” to tell her what being Black means.
A Nigerian TV channel, Arise TV, hosted a segment the day after she was elected, where a panellist warned about the direction of Badenoch’s politics, adding: “Of course, we wish her well. All the best. All the best.” The opposing responses to her election reveal a tension that will only become sharper: as African migrants rise through the ranks of power in adopted, wealthier homes, expectations from their achievements will clash with the reality and hopes of those left behind. But for those who sincerely feel connected to others who have done well elsewhere, hope always springs eternal. All the best. All the best.
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What we’re into
Fragments of Epic Memory, an exhibition of contemporary Caribbean art and historical documentation is on display at the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio, US. The collection is beautiful, and I love the rebuke of how the touristic image of the Caribbean obscures its real history. Jason
I’ve just discovered the Nigerian Kabusa Oriental Choir and I am hooked beyond help. The renditions of pop hits such as Soso by Omah Lay (of Justin Bieber collab fame) are haunting and catchy. Prepare to listen to nothing else for the next three to five business days. Nesrine
Look, we can sit here and debate the cultural value of Tyler Perry or we can just enjoy the nonsense. His latest soap opera, Beauty in Black, is on Netflix. A one-star review only makes it more of a must-see. Jason
Powdered food. Less gross than it sounds. I travel so much that my mother has taken to drying and pounding things like okra, spinach and even meat to take with me. One spoon of them in any broth and I’m home. Here’s a simple guide for okra. Nesrine
Black catalogue
Quincy Jones, the record producer and entertainment magnate who worked with the likes of Michael Jackson and Frank Sinatra, died on Sunday at the age of 91. Jones was the first African American to be nominated for an Oscar for best original song, for Eyes of Love from the 1967 film Banning. Have a listen to the track here. Then, take in his full 1973 album, You’ve Got It Bad Girl.
Tap in
In honour of some of the very funny interview stories coming out about Quincy Jones, we want to know your favourite anecdote about a late Black legend, personal or public, funny or heartwarming.
Apologies that last week the reply function wasn’t working, but now you can send your responses by hitting reply or getting us on thelongwave@theguardian.com, and we’ll share a selection in a future newsletter.
