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The Guardian
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘As a film lover, I want more': the Black female directors taking centre stage
Hello and welcome to The Long Wave. This week I spoke to Rógan Graham, a curator of the British Film Institute's latest season, Black Debutantes: A Collection of Early Works by Black Women Directors. The programme runs throughout May at the BFI Southbank in London, and is a celebration of the feature-length work of Black female film-makers, both the familiar and the seldom screened. Rógan Graham conceived of Black Debutantes after reflecting on the career trajectories – or lack of them – of female directors beyond their debut films. The BFI often runs seasons dedicated to film-makers such as Mike Leigh or Akira Kurosawa, and Graham asked herself: which Black female director has a robust enough filmography to uphold a month-long season? This is, of course, not to downplay the incredible achievements of Black women in cinema, but it was evident to Graham that 'Black women don't have as long careers within the film industry. The statistics are stark.' Graham realised that many of the films she loved by Black women, such as the coming-of-age drama Drylongso by Cauleen Smith, or Naked Acts by Bridgett M Davis, which are featured in the season, were debuts that neither director has yet followed up. 'Cauleen Smith has continued to have a very long, creative career, and has worked with a lot of galleries and art spaces with experimental video work,' Graham notes, 'but she is very much outside of the traditional … not even Hollywood, we're talking about independent, American cinema.' Drylongso isn't an outsider kind of film – watching it, it seems very much part of the coming-of-age films so prevalent around the time of its release in 1998. Graham compares Drylongso with Leslie Harris's Just Another Girl on the IRT (which would have been included in the season, had it not been rereleased by Tape Collective this year). 'Both films deal with very real issues that Black teenagers of that time were dealing with,' she says. 'But that doesn't take away from the fact that they're hilarious and they're relatable.' Mothers, daughters and the camera The films Graham selected for Black Debutantes showcase a wide variety of genres, from Ngozi Onwurah's dystopian drama Welcome II the Terrordome to Dee Rees's queer teen film Pariah and Euzhan Palcy's Sugar Cane Alley, which explores the colonial power struggle of 1980s Martinique. Graham says all the films in the season 'walk this really fine line between being relatable and warm, but very much dealing with issues'. Graham didn't realise until she had completed the season's curation that there was a mother-daughter dynamic in much of the work she had chosen, whether explored literally in films such as Frances-Anne Solomon's What My Mother Told Me, or more tangentially, for instance in Losing Ground by the late Kathleen Collins, which features a prerecorded introduction by her daughter Nina Lorez Collins. 'Kathleen died in her 40s [in 1988], and it was her daughter who safeguarded her work and helped get it restored,' Graham says. 'And I think that's incredibly powerful.' Continuing the matrilineal theme, Davis's Naked Acts tackles childhood sexual trauma but with 'a lighter touch'. In the film, the aspiring actor Cicely does not want to shoot a nude scene, as her mother, who was in blaxploitation films, was made to do decades earlier. 'That theme of not being like your mother comes through really strongly in a lot of the films,' Graham says. Another key motif in the season is that of the camera as a means of expression. In Losing Ground, Sara features in one of her student's films, which helps her develop a more assertive approach to her jealous and lecherous husband, Victor. Pica, the protagonist of Drylongso, photographs African American men in her community, 'as she believes they'll be going extinct due to the gang violence in South Central LA in the 1990s'. At the end of Naked Acts, Cicely spends time alone with the camera, embracing her own body. 'The way Black women see ourselves and put ourselves in the frame is very much a conversation. As well as that compulsion to document and preserve images,' Graham says. Piracy and privileges A programme of such ambitious scope can't have been straightforward to execute, particularly given the issues with accessing Black films and securing the rights to screen it. Graham tells me that piracy has often been the only way she could access material: 'This is not me stealing anything, but it might be a friend who has a link in Google Drive or a programmer in another country who can slip you a WeTransfer link.' Working with the BFI put Graham in the 'privileged position' of having researchers who could help secure the films after she had scoured the internet and film curation programmes overseas. Sign up to The Long Wave Nesrine Malik and Jason Okundaye deliver your weekly dose of Black life and culture from around the world after newsletter promotion Some of the films required a more personal approach. A 4K restoration of Jessie Maple's Will, the first-feature length dramatic film by an African American woman, premiered at MoMA in New York in January. Maple had died in 2023, and a curatorial director at the Criterion Collection named Ashley Clark introduced Graham to Maple's family. Consequently, Will, which explores the impact of drug use on Black families and communities, will have its first public screening in front of a British audience. 'There's a lot of relationship management, either directly with the film-maker, or with family, or the people who manage their estate,' Graham says. Sometimes, she adds, there is the more frustrating scenario of dealing with a bigger studio that 'doesn't really care or remember that they have the rights to the film'. Into the future: 'There's still a massive disparity' Considering the truncated careers of so many Black female film-makers, I ask Graham what she makes of the state of play today. One of the most critically acclaimed films of the past year, Hard Truths, focused on a depressed Black woman, but it was made by Mike Leigh, a white man. 'Hard Truths is an interesting example,' Graham says. 'There was discussion around who gets to author that kind of story when there is still such a massive disparity between men and women, and Black and white film-makers. But I think when you look at Savanah Leaf, who made Earth Mama, which won the Bafta for outstanding debut, or Raine Allen-Miller's success with Rye Lane, we've got a real crop of debuts in the past three or four years which feels promising.' Graham is regularly checking their IMDb pages, wondering about their second films. She loved Nyoni's On Becoming a Guinea Fowl but notes that it came seven years after her debut feature film, I Am Not a Witch. 'I just want Black film-makers to be continually supported – that's as audience members buying tickets and the industry funding it. Greedily, as a film lover, I want more.' Black Debutantes: A Collection of Early Works by Black Women Directors is at BFI Southbank from 1-31 May, with select titles on BFI Player from 5 May. To receive the complete version of The Long Wave in your inbox every Wednesday, please subscribe here.
The Guardian
24-04-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Tanzania opposition officials arrested before Lissu's court appearance
Tanzania's main opposition party has said at least two of its officials have been arrested on their way to a rally to support the leading government opponent Tundu Lissu, who is due in court to face a treason charge. Authorities in the east African country have increasingly cracked down on the opposition Chadema party in the run-up to presidential and parliamentary polls in October. Lissu could face the death penalty over the treason charge. His party has been disqualified from the elections after it refused to sign an electoral code of conduct. Chadema has accused President Samia Suluhu Hassan of returning to the repressive tactics of her predecessor, John Magufuli. The Chadema spokesperson, Brenda Rupia, said the party's deputy chair, John Heche, and secretary general, John Mnyika, were among those detained by police en route to the court in the business capital of Dar es Salaam. Lissu, 57, was due at Kisutu magistrate court on Thursday, amid growing outrage in the country over his detention. Heche had previously called for demonstrations, and Amnesty International demanded Lissu's immediate and unconditional release. Lissu has not been seen since a brief court appearance on 10 April, when he was charged with treason, which has no option of bail, and publication of false information. At the time, a defiant Lissu told supporters: 'The treason case is a path to liberation.' He has been arrested several times in the past but this is the first time Lissu has faced such a serious charge. The politician has led a forceful charge against the government, vowing his party would not participate in polls without significant changes to the electoral system. Chadema's refusal to sign an electoral code of conduct prompted its disqualification – but the party has said the rules were designed to 'ensure that the ruling party remains in power' and that the ban was unconstitutional. The president's party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi, won an overwhelming victory in local elections last year but Chadema says the vote was not free or fair since many of its candidates were disqualified. Chadema has demanded a voting overhaul, including a more independent Electoral Commission and clearer rules to ensure candidates are not removed from ballots. Lissu warned last year that Chadema would 'block the elections through confrontation' unless the system was improved. The opposition's demands have been long ignored by the ruling party. Sign up to The Long Wave Nesrine Malik and Jason Okundaye deliver your weekly dose of Black life and culture from around the world after newsletter promotion A lawyer by training, Lissu entered parliament in 2010 and ran for president in 2020. He was shot 16 times in a 2017 attack that he says was ordered by his political opponents. After losing the 2020 election to Magufuli, he fled the country but returned in 2023 on a wave of optimism as Hassan relaxed some of her predecessor's restrictions on the opposition and the media. Those hopes proved short-lived, with rights groups and western governments increasingly critical of renewed repression, including the arrests of Chadema politicians as well as abductions and murders of opposition figures. In a statement after Lissu's detention, Amnesty International condemned a 'campaign of repression' by authorities, criticising the 'heavy-handed tactics to silence critics'.
The Guardian
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘I like pushing boundaries': Yinka Shonibare on his landmark art show in Madagascar
Hello and welcome to The Long Wave. Earlier this month I was in Antananarivo, Madagascar, where I checked out the British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare's first major solo exhibition in Africa. For this week's newsletter I caught up with him about the landmark show, and learned a lot about the growing Malagasy art scene. Madagascar is not a country that figures prominently in media – western or otherwise (beyond the children's film) – and as such it was difficult to know what to expect. I hadn't imagined an opportunity to visit, and so Fondation H's invitation to the capital to explore the art scene felt once in a lifetime. It was certainly a long way to travel for an exhibition: from London, with a stopover in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the journey topped 15 hours, though as soon as I landed in Madagascar I was instantly taken by its lush, grassy plains and mountainous topography. Arriving in Antananarivo, commonly referred to as Tana, is a visual feast, remarkable for its colour and vibrancy; the cityscape is defined by its rugged terrain, where houses of red, yellow, terracotta and turquoise resemble a hillside mosaic. At the heart of this beautiful city is the building of Fondation H, the Malagasy art foundation founded in 2017 to address the country's lack of public modern art institutions, despite its reserve of creative talent. The building itself, a palace of red stones, was constructed under the French colonial administration but was renovated with old Malagasy techniques of tile-making, parquetry and carpentry. Since opening its doors in 2023, Fondation H has hosted residencies and exhibitions from more than 30 African artists. And, as I learned on my trip, the foundation's building welcomes 15,000 visitors a month, 90% of those being from Madagascar with a large proportion under the age of 25. This is a demographic composition that would be the envy of any art institution, particularly as galleries around the world fight to attract young, local audiences. In a country that lacks any big art schools, the foundation has presented a unique opportunity to invest in Malagasy youth through the organisation of training sessions and workshops, and provided a space for Malagasy artists to be judged by the international art market. Authenticity and stereotyping Fondation H's latest guest is perhaps its most significant: the British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare was given carte blanche to occupy the 2,200-sq metre building with installations drawn from his catalogue of works. While Shonibare tells me that being in Madagascar for his first large solo exhibition in Africa feels symbolic, it is not his first attempt. He has exhibited solo shows in South Africa, and about 15 years ago the late Nigerian curator Bisi Silva, the founder of the Centre for Contemporary Art in Lagos, invited Shonibare to put on a major exhibition. However, the city's infrastructure meant they could not find the right space for the scale of installations. The most distinctive practice of Shonibare is his focus on materials – and his consistent use of Ankara print – African wax fabrics that he says capture the very essence of hybridities as a concept. 'I like pushing the boundaries of my practice and using non-conventional materials,' he says. He also tells me that while at art school he was fascinated by Soviet art and created some works around perestroika, a political restructuring movement during the late stages of the USSR. One of Shonibare's professors questioned why he wasn't producing 'authentic' African art, and it frustrated him as he finds that arts and textiles are fashioned through an assembly line of cross-cultural involvement rather than a singular source. With African wax prints, 'they are Indonesian-influenced fabrics produced by the Dutch and sold to the African market. So the material itself does raise a number of questions about authenticity and stereotyping.' The central attraction of Shonibare's exhibition is his immersive installation The African Library, which contains about 6,000 books that are displayed in African wax prints. Created in 2018, the library is an archive of celebration of anticolonial revolutionary leaders, such as Nelson Mandela and Kwame Nkrumah, but also of musicians and sports stars of differing generations such as Margaret Singana, Smockey and Patrick Vieira. The intellectual project behind the library is to recalibrate our understanding of independence history and how African stories are still being written today. It's essential to retain history At the exhibition, I am particularly struck by a print from his African Bird Magic series, which features two birds and an Idia mask, the traditional ivory mask of Idia, the first queen mother of the 16th-century Benin empire. Shonibare tells me that when he created this series he was 'thinking about whether the African environment has been degraded through mining and industrialisation … and then thinking back to a precolonial period when Africans had a closer relationship with nature'. He was also thinking about 'the possibility of birds being extinct because of what's been done to the environment'. The Idia mask was looted from Benin during the British punitive expedition of 1897, alongside other artefacts including the famed Benin bronzes. He tells me that the mask used in the print on display is the exact mask that the British Museum refused to loan Nigeria for Festac '77 (the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture). 'That mask then became the symbol for Festac. It's very famous and iconic – some would even say it's like Nigeria's Mona Lisa.' Restitution remains a key motif in much of Shonibare's work. For the Nigerian pavilion at last year's Venice Biennale, he presented an installation crafted from clay that replicated 153 of the objects known to have been looted from Benin during the 1897 expedition. Much of Shonibare's art work furthers political commentary. In Fondation H, his installation Decolonised Structures features statues of Queen Victoria, the colonial administrator Earl Kitchener, and the British wartime prime minister Winston Churchill covered in African wax fabrics with their plinths reduced so they are closer to the ground. This was the artist's response to discussions around the toppling of statues, such as of the enslaver Edward Colston in Bristol, England. 'I don't support statues being destroyed,' he says. 'We can create conversations around them, we can move them to museums, but I think it's essential to retain history and to retain memory.' Sign up to The Long Wave Nesrine Malik and Jason Okundaye deliver your weekly dose of Black life and culture from around the world after newsletter promotion A thriving Malagasy arts scene Shonibare has also curated a display of works from 19 African and Afro-descendant artists drawn from the foundation's collections. He selected artists who 'push the boundaries of materials. There are artists like El Anatsui and Ibrahim Mahama, who really think about their local context and their works are usually derived from the materials they have at hand.' Shonibare thinks about a 'liberation through the use of materials' and one of the artists featured, a Malagasy artist called Temandrota, talks me through his work on display, which uses organic materials found in south-east Madagascar, where he hails, such as roots, sap and sisal. 'This is art that speaks to experience. Very deep in the island, in the south, there is not much water. People are nomadic because of this as they have to go from one place to another to find food and water.' As such, the use of materials from the local environment replicates how groups of southern Malagasy people carry their cultures, textiles and rituals wherever they go. Temandrota also tells me that since the opening of Fondation H, his art – and the work of other Malagasy artists – has been 'opened to the world' and provided a more secure premises for the artistic scene in Madagascar, which had previously been more loose and disjointed. Shonibare's nurturing of artists will continue through two projects in Nigeria: a more formal artistic space in Lagos and a rural working farm in Ijebu-Ode, Ogun state. Shonibare tells me that the idea of the farm, where local produce like cassava, yam, tomatoes, pawpaw and plantain are grown, is to 'support food sustainability in Nigeria, support the local area, and support the work of artists who might want to make things around ecology'. Through the partnership, the Malagasy artist Joey Aresoa will begin a residency in Lagos this year. When I visit Aresoa in her studio, she talks me through a silver installation, a library of possibilities, building stories and filling absences in Malagasy-authored literature – a pursuit she intends to continue through the residency. For Shonibare, his Guest Artists Space (GAS) foundation is about building the infrastructure to develop artistic careers on the continent, much like Fondation H. 'For some diaspora artists, it has been quite emotional for them as it may be their first time in Nigeria or anywhere in Africa, and we have the infrastructure and framework to support this and to build links around the world. We have an essential role in supporting African and diaspora creatives, in giving them that platform and space.' To receive the complete version of The Long Wave in your inbox every Wednesday, please subscribe here.
The Guardian
16-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Five things you didn't know about Black British cultural history
Hello and welcome to The Long Wave. I'm Lanre Bakare and I usually cover arts and culture for the Guardian, but I'm taking over the newsletter this week to tell you about my new book, We Were There, a cultural history of Black Britain. It's set between 1979 and 1990, covering the rise and premiership of Margaret Thatcher, the UK's first female prime minister, whose divisive but transformative remodelling of Britain is still felt today – and within that political upheaval, race dominated the headlines. But it was also a time when modern Black British culture was forged. I'll talk you through five things I learned from my research. Three years ago, in the early stages of my book research, I wrote about Black British people who attended northern soul nights in the 1970s. Clubs hosted 'all-nighters' when fans would dance to often discarded soul tracks from a decade earlier. I was always told that northern soul, despite being a scene built on African American music, was a white movement and that Black British kids weren't really interested in it. But when I went back and watched Tony Palmer's amazing documentary Wigan Casino, which took film cameras inside an all-nighter at the famous club night, I spotted half a dozen Black faces in the crowd. As soon as I saw them, I wanted to know their stories and how they had become part of this scene. What I discovered was teenagers who were obsessed with mod culture, football and soul music; young migrants who, for various reasons, had left places such as St Kitts, Jamaica and Ghana and settled in northern towns and cities. They were young people searching for a sense of belonging and northern soul gave that to them. The lesson I learned is that whenever someone presents an assumption about Black Britain and the subcultures we've belonged to, you'll almost always find a counter-narrative of lives that have long been obscured. TV reflected Black life beyond the capital In the 1980s, when Black Britain was portrayed on television there was an understanding that Black life extended beyond the capital. Programmes such as Black Bag and Ebony on the Road made a concerted effort to tell true stories about Black communities in Chapeltown in Leeds and Butetown in Cardiff. The late 70s soap opera Empire Road, written by Michael Abbensetts, was shot on location on the streets of Handsworth in Birmingham. It's hard to imagine Black television set in the Midlands or Wales today, as commissioners look to London for a supposedly more 'authentic' representation of Black Britain. Think of the recent Black dramas and comedies that have had success – I May Destroy You, Queenie, Dreaming Whilst Black, Supacell, Riches – they are all set in the capital. The BBC drama This Town, released last year, was a welcome exception – yet it's clear we've lost the ability, or the interest, to look across the UK for stories about our culture. As the most recent census reveals, for the first time since at least 1991, the majority of Black people live outside London. To explore the true nature of Black Britain, we must document all of it. Thatcher and Powell gave Labour a pass Thatcher's stance on race and immigration was hostile. In 1978, as leader of the opposition, she claimed that areas of Britain were being 'swamped' by foreigners. Her comments after the Liverpool unrest in 1981, when she claimed the rioting was by young men 'whose high animal spirits' had 'wreak[ed] havoc' on the city, were clear dog whistles. But during this period the Labour party, typically viewed as more progressive than the Conservatives, was also incredibly hostile to immigrants and often benefited from more outrageous comments by the Tories. Enoch Powell's racist 'rivers of blood' speech in 1968 came two months after the Labour home secretary, Jim Callaghan, claimed that the 'increased flow' of south Asian migrants from east Africa to the UK was 'continuing and might become a flood'. The influx, he argued, was 'more than we could absorb'. The 1968 Commonwealth Immigrants Act followed – and for the first time denied British citizens entry to the country on racial grounds. Callaghan's biographer Kenneth Morgan points out that 'from Callaghan's perspective, Powell's antics were a valuable distraction. They enabled the government to appear, by contrast, sane and balanced.' In reality, Callaghan (who would become prime minister and was the MP for Butetown) laid the groundwork for the legislation that led to the Windrush scandal. Sign up to The Long Wave Nesrine Malik and Jason Okundaye deliver your weekly dose of Black life and culture from around the world after newsletter promotion Urban renewal was one of Black Britain's biggest foes Urban renewal programmes intended to rebuild postwar Britain were, in fact, quite destructive to Black British communities. It's clear why renewal was necessary and desirable to remodel Britain: old, often dangerous housing would be replaced by new homes designed to modernist principles. Yet poor construction meant many of these new properties – for example, Hulme Crescents in Manchester – were not fit for purpose. A knock-on effect was felt by home-owning Black Britons whose properties were bought, often for tiny sums, and who were then relocated in new council accommodation. This significantly weakened the economic potential of Black Britons who could, for example, have used their homes as collateral in order to start a business. This pattern was repeated across the UK where Black communities were often on the frontline of the mass redevelopment phases that were introduced during the 1960s and reappeared in the 80s, first in London Docklands, then in Liverpool and Cardiff. Uncles and aunties had beef One thing that shocked me while writing the book was the amount of beef people from this era had with one another. Some people still don't talk because of things that happened in the 80s. It makes sense. Often they were in campaign groups or activist circles where one, usually male figure, would dominate. That led to some people being marginalised. Other times there were personality clashes, which isn't uncommon in an environment where outspoken, politically driven people come together for a cause. The final chapter is about Black rugby league players, who I assumed would all be friends, united by their position as outsiders in this ultra macho sport. But they often kept intense professional rivalries, in some cases to keep an edge over a competitor, in others because they genuinely despised each other. We Were There: How Black Culture, Resistance and Community Shaped Modern Britain by Lanre Bakare is published by Bodley Head (£22). To support the Guardian and the Observer buy a copy at Delivery charges may apply. To receive the complete version of The Long Wave in your inbox every Wednesday, please subscribe here.
The Guardian
09-04-2025
- The Guardian
Will pan-African air travel ever truly take off?
Hello and welcome to The Long Wave. This week, I dig into one of my biggest travelling bugbears. Why is it so circuitous, expensive, time-consuming and exhausting to travel within Africa? Here are some of the routes that are available for travel within Africa. Buckle up. The shortest option from Johannesburg to Dakar is 14 and a half hours over two stops through Gabon and Togo. If you would prefer fewer stops, you have the option of leaving Africa altogether – flying to Istanbul and returning to the continent, which takes a 'quick' 26 hours and five minutes. Port Sudan to Kampala, a mere 1,860 miles away, is a nine-hour flight via Addis Ababa. And if you want to hop over from sub-Saharan Africa to north Africa, you are likely to end up in Paris or Amsterdam, which I have done, and felt that sailing around the Cape of Good Hope might have made more sense. And cost less. The minimum you'll pay for such trips is US $1,000 return. Few carriers – and no cheap ones Part of the problem is that there are only a few large airlines on the continent. Kenya Airways, Ethiopian Airlines and EgyptAir dominate Africa, and travellers are subject to those carriers' regional concentration, decisions on which direct routes to service, and the prices they can set, given the lack of competition. The result is that European airlines such as KLM, Air France and Turkish Airlines mop up the rest of the journeys, and therefore hurl travellers out of the continent to their connecting hubs. I asked a Kenyan aviation expert why it was so hard for African airlines to expand their coverage, and he said: 'Every plane isn't just a plane. It's insurance, it's parts, it's maintenance.' The bar is very high for an additional route. And so while it would be great to pop over from Nairobi to N'Djamena, there just isn't enough traffic to justify the cost. There might be, if the prices were lower. Air travel remains a huge luxury in Africa, and there are no low-cost regional equivalents to budget carriers such as easyJet and Ryanair, as a result of everything from lack of demand to the high capital required to establish a new airline. However, there is a chicken-and-egg element here: pan-African travel for leisure is considered prohibitively costly and cumbersome, and so the infrastructure required to support it, as well as domestic tourism markets, are discouraged. There is another reason that raises a deeper question about how high the barriers are between countries that often share borders, languages and even tribal and ethnic relations. The visa problem It is an enduring travesty that in most parts of Africa, it is easier to gain entry if you have a western passport than an African one. My travel within the continent opened up vastly after I received a British passport, and it always feels like an uncomfortable colonial throwback to produce it for admission, rather than my Sudanese one. There are strong regional groupings, such as the Economic Community of West African States, and Kenya has recently declared that it will soon allow visa-free travel for all Africans – a bold announcement that has no launch date. Other barriers linger, and some are getting higher. A historic free travel treaty between Sudan and Egypt was scrapped after the start of the war in Sudan to stanch the flow of refugees. This year, the African Union called for acceleration of visa-free movement to boost regional integration, and officials blamed enduring travel restrictions for not only the blocking of the goal of a united Africa but for hampering growth and development. Part of that slow growth is the stagnation of the aviation industry. Free movement, said the vice-president for regional development, 'must be the backbone of our integration'. Sign up to The Long Wave Nesrine Malik and Jason Okundaye deliver your weekly dose of Black life and culture from around the world after newsletter promotion Air Afrique: could the glamorous past be a model for the future? There was once a pan-African airline whose posters I recall being a part of the iconography of travel on the continent: Air Afrique. Established in 1961 by a collective of west African Francophone countries and two French airlines, Air Afrique flew to 56 destinations, 35 of which were in Africa. As a marker of how much travel is crucial to fostering connections, it became more than just an airline and developed into a cultural powerhouse, sponsoring film festivals and establishing style standards (in a nod to this years after the airline closed, a Parisian art collective created an Air Afrique installation at men's fashion week in 2022). After dominating African travel for four decades, Air Afrique succumbed to bankruptcy in 2002 as a result of mismanagement and the challenges of the aviation industry after 9/11. And there is a lesson there on how economic and political shocks such as recessions and pandemics are hard to manage, even by the most established players. It is understandable why airlines and policymakers may choose to be conservative. But the case for increased African and African diaspora travel routes is becoming ever more persuasive. Three years ago, Kenya announced that it would be partnering with South Africa to launch a new pan-African carrier. And Nigeria is in talks to launch direct flights to Jamaica and Barbados. There is clearly much infrastructure, investment and liberation of visa regimes needed to turn these ambitions into reality. But there is now such a vast disconnect between the growing cultural and political links between many countries that share so much, that the business case for extending them through air travel should eventually become obvious. And just think of the airline stewards' uniforms. To receive the complete version of The Long Wave in your inbox every Wednesday, please subscribe here.
