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Nubiart Profile



 "NUBIART - A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE ON THE AFRIKAN WORLD"

Nubiart, is a weekly Africentric arts, social and current affairs radio programme on Sound Radio 1503 AM in London and on the internet. We have been producing and presenting this show since February 2003 as members of the Afrikan Quest audio-visual collective (although it was previously broadcast as a pilot show in the spring of 1999).

The idea for the show is to give a view on events and Afrikan life that is ‘outside the box’ of the normal mainstream reporting of the lives of Afrikan people in the UK. We picked the name Nubiart to reflect the Afrikan content and ethos of the show. While the ‘art’ was to show that it was a holistic programme not limited to the ‘serious’ side of our experience but also incorporating our creative expressions.

Some of the elements that make Nubiart different from most of the magazine programmes are firstly that we decided to give people as much time as they need to explain the issues or the project they are trying to promote. Timewise, if a topic needs five minutes or the whole hour then we have that flexibility eschewing the standard five to twenty minutes per topic on other shows. This can also mean that programmes can go over one, two or three programmes as was done with Hyacinth Palmer’s experience of the mental health system (three shows), the current situation in Zimbabwe (two shows) and the resistance to slavery and Arabisation in Sudan (two shows).

Secondly, we decided not to follow the conventional structure of shows by trying (sometimes over-) desperately to make them appear ‘balanced’ within the ‘two sides to every story’ format. We are more than aware that Afrikan lives are more complex than that – sometimes there may be more than two sides (up to fifteen in some political situations – take your pick) while in others there is only one reasonable side to take in the interests and benefit of Afrikan people.

Or perhaps, even, there are none. We do not need to always look at things from a conflictual / confrontational perspective. When we truly work for the common good - a timeless Afrikan principle - we must endeavour not only to please the greatest number of people or our particular region or clan but also to reflect the interests of our society and, ultimately, humanity.

The two shows on Zimbabwe were based around an extended interview with Baffour Ankomah, Editor of the London-based New African magazine. Baffour had just returned from a third trip to Zimbabwe in Dec 2002. On that trip and the two previous ones he had travelled across Zimbabwe meeting the ordinary people as well as the political, economic and media players.

His stance in favour of Zanu-PF’s land redistribution programme has led to several in-depth articles in the magazine that come from a perspective diametrically opposed to the mainstream political and media coverage of the situation in the UK. This has included a breakdown of the land redistribution programme, regular updates on its progress and a 16-page special feature interview with President Robert Mugabe in the May 2002 issue.

Baffour was at pains to point out that neither he nor the New African are blind cheerleaders for Robert Mugabe. Land redistribution in Zimbabwe is not about personalities, party loyalty or ‘messianism’. Politically, you can disagree with Robert Mugabe on many issues and policies that he has or hasn’t implemented over his two decades in charge but the truth of the matter is if Mugabe changed his mind tomorrow on land redistribution it would still be a necessity. If he resigned it would be the same and if he passed on to the realms of the land of the ancestors the policy of returning the land to its original owners to live on, farm and develop would still be the correct policy for Zimbabwe and all Afrikans.

Any person or organisation that is not in favour of that will get little support from ordinary Afrikans who have shed blood, sweat and tears over many decades to reclaim land stolen from their ancestors. Even if the land is ‘misused’ it is for the original inhabitants of the land to redress that rather than for foreigners to be invited in as the only people capable of managing the economy and ‘saving’ the Afrikans from themselves. There have been famines, droughts and disease in Afrika before but equally there is also a long line of knowledge of successfully feeding our people, managing our societies, trading and last but not least building vast empires and great civilisations that sustained us for millennia.

This is the perspective with which we approach programme content on both Nubiart and Afrikan Worldview.