Gary Lineker made an error in the tweet that had him cancelled from hosting Match of the Day on the BBC. Delivering her policy statement in the House of Commons, Home Secretary Suella Braverman declared that Britain was being ‘invaded by a huge influx of refugees.’ – there are a hundred million who want to come to Britain – and there are ‘potentially billions of people displaced by war and climate change who – she implies might turn up on our shores.’ In response, Lineker tweeted “There is no huge influx. We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries. This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s . . . ”
The outcry
There was an outcry from Braverman, the Tories, the BBC and some of the press saying that Lineker should not have mentioned Germany and the Holocaust. There’s some truth in that. What Lineker ought to have tweeted is this – “There is no huge influx. We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries. “This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by the British Black Shirts led by Sir Oswald Mosley when the Cable Street Battle took place in London’s East End . . . .”
Where did the idea come that poets are a separate kind of human that is more aesthetically refined, sensitive, better educated and therefore part of an elite? Where did the idea come from that we can’t sing unless taught how to do it? Is this why some of us avoid trying to write poetry and others of us avoid poets in case they are snobs? Who insisted that dancing must be done only in a prescribed pattern and as part of a learned ritual? Who decided that making art must be the work of a genius before it has value and what on earth is a genius anyway? Why is swimming as easy as walking for people who live by water but has to be learned by the rest of us? And while on that subject, why is swimming prescribed for women in certain religions when it’s instinctive for a baby and natural for children? I’m remembering something I hope accurately, that Laurence Durrell wrote about dancing and swimming being linked activities connected with the enjoyment of our sexuality and therefore with our creativity.
I listened to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Reith Lecture on Freedom of Speech on the BBC and I knew I was once again in a world of curiosity and questioning where books are open doors to the whole world. As Adichie said, the essential freedom to be creative is only possible if there is freedom of speech. The Reith lectures were by four people on the subject of President Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms. I had felt lost and homeless after our travels in the Middle East ended. We had journeyed through changing landscapes, differing perceptions of life and many other ways of being human and telling truths. My longed-for home seemed to have become a closed and narrow trap. I didn’t feel that I belonged anywhere. Once again I was a citizen of nowhere and not a citizen of the world.
The Banshees of Inisherinwas on at the local cinema the night after the Golden Globe event on TV. We decided to see it because Colin Farrell had won an award for his role in it. The film is set against the background noise of the guns of the Irish civil war. Innis Erin – Inisherin means the island of Ireland (Erin) and the lives of the few people on this tiny fabulous island who are apparently dull and boring, are as violent, passionate and dangerous as that of the warring mainland. I didn’t know what it was about but I hoped it would be good entertainment. In its favour, it was also a ‘Version originale’ rather than dubbed. (C’est à dire dans la langue dans laquelle il a été tourné.) That turned out to be just as well because Irish -spoken English is poorly translated into rather dubious French subtitles.It is a brilliant movie.
Disembarking at Cairo, we were confronted with an enormous billboard welcoming delegates to the COP27 climate conference. 40 000 delegates were meeting to discuss, among other things, the painful question of financial responsibility for fixing the climate crisis caused largely by the activities of developed countries.
Visiting Egypt was a long-held dream. It was wonderful for many reasons, not least of which is our brilliant Egyptian guide Mohammed Ali who explains and inspires in equal measure. However, exploring the ancient rise and fall of the Pharaohs does not shield me from today’s concerns. Rather, it amplifies the question, “When will we learn from history?” Mohammed and I talked about the Aswan Dam and the changes it has made to Nile River agriculture just as the Kariba Dam has changed the Lower Zambezi Basin. We also talked about the displacement of the Nubian villagers and compared their plight with the Batonga of the Middle Zambezi
COP27 sign at Cairo International Airport
Kariba Dam: A giant unpredictable experiment
Considering the challenges of COP27, I was reminded of my early 2020 visit to Zambia for an interview about my first book, The Shaping of Water, published some years earlier. Although Zambia is a very different African country, there are familiar parallels.
In Learning from the Kariba Dam, an article published on 22 July 2020 in The Climate Issue of The New York Times Magazine, Namwall Serpell says, “The history of the Kariba Dam is the story of a war over the past and the future of a river.” Namwali Serpell is a Zambian who has written a prize-winning book about the Dam called The Old Drift
The Kariba Dam which created Lake Kariba was one of many engineering projects built by a colonial government to serve their own interests, at a huge cost to the local and downstream ecology and population, and a financial cost which continues now as the Kariba Dam Rehabilitation Project (KDRP) attempts to repair the 80-metre deep plunge hole endangering the dam.
What follows is a repost of my reflections on that visit and the “giant unpredictable experiment that is changing the natural environment of the region”, first published on 21 March 2020:
The Shaping of Water: Returning to the past to build the future
Daniel Sikazwe interviews Ruth Hartley on the terrace of the Ridgeway Hotel
This year (2020), I time-travelled back more than 30 years. I returned to the Ridgeway Hotel in Lusaka to the place where golden weaver birds build their nests above small sun-worshipping crocodiles. Here, there were once an excellent Zintu craft shop, a regular Zambian ladies’ lunch, an Independence Day National Art Exhibition, and gin-and-tonics on the verandah under the management of Richard Chanter.
On this occasion, I was meeting Daniel Sikazwe, journalist, broadcaster and PEN member to interview me about my novel The Shaping of Water. The Ridgeway was as pleasant as ever! As with the Alliance Francaise event compèred for me by Daniel, it was a very enjoyable interview. Daniel asked penetrating questions about the reasons I wrote The Shaping of Water, and the truth of the facts in it.
“It’s a book that should be standard reading for Zambians,” Daniel said. “It tells of a part of our history that is not known about.” And so we talked of how I came to write this book and of the problems of writing cross-cultural history as a novel.
