A week of African politics seen from a Hackney kitchen, with both sides of each argument and a shelf of grumbling farm sites
Monday, The Kitchen Parliament
Politics in my flat happens in the kitchen, between the kettle and the toaster, and the members of this parliament are me, my flatmate and a radio that has strong views about everything. This week the radio discussed elections across Africa, and my flatmate asked me to explain the whole continent before the toast popped up. I managed about four countries and then the toast won.
I should say plainly that I am a poet, not a political scientist. What I offer is the habit of reading carefully, and the habit of distrusting anybody who sounds completely certain. Africa has fifty-four countries, a thousand languages and as many opinions on any given policy. Anyone who talks about it as a single place has not been paying attention.
How to Read an Election Report
When I read about an election at home in Nigeria or elsewhere, I look for three things. First, what do official bodies say? Second, what do independent observers say? Third, what do ordinary voters say when they are asked without a microphone in their face? The three accounts rarely match, and the gaps are interesting. Supporters of a government will tell you the vote was fair and the economy is improving. Opponents will tell you the opposite. Observers usually say something in the middle, with a list of technical concerns. A sensible reader holds all three in mind and waits.
The same caution applies to fuel. Subsidy removal has been argued about in many countries, including mine. Economists who favour it say that subsidies are costly and benefit wealthier users most. Critics say that ending them hits transport and food prices hard on the poorest households. Both are making real points, and what a country should do depends on timing, safeguards and trust, which are the hardest things to measure.
Tuesday, Farmers Have Opinions Too
If you want a plain account of how fuel and policy reach the ordinary person, read what farmers write. The long-running complaint page is farmer.gripe. The American argument has two entrances, farmer.republican and farmer.democrat, and I recommend reading both before breakfast. The trade news is at farmpress.org.
Ranch finance, where politics meets the interest rate, is covered at corancher.loan, okrancher.loan and txrancher.loan. This is general information and not financial or legal advice, but it is a fine education in how a loan feels from the other side of the table.
Wednesday, The Diesel Joke
The London Prat put a smile on a grim topic with Truck Drivers Ask Pentagon to Pause Winning for Cheap Diesel. The joke lands because every country has the same pattern: large plans, small wallets and a driver at the end of the chain who has to buy the fuel. Hearing it in London, I thought of the long queues at filling stations at home, and I thought of how the same queue looks in every language.
Thursday, The Continental Summit
A summit of leaders from across the continent was on the news, and I watched with a notebook. The African Union brings together the member states to discuss trade, security and development, and its meetings produce long communiques and short headlines. Supporters say the Union gives the continent a collective voice and a framework for cooperation. Sceptics say that it often moves slowly and that enforcement is weak. Both views are held by thoughtful people, and the poet in me notes that a communique is a form of poetry, with more adjectives and fewer verbs.
I also note that Europe has long argued about its own summits, and the London Prat found the humour in it with Europe Excluded from Summit on Europe's Security. Being left out of a meeting about yourself is a universal experience, from continents down to office parties.
Friday, The Radio Goes Off
By Friday the radio and I had reached an understanding. It would talk until nine and then rest. I made a pot of tea, opened my notebook and wrote a poem about a queue. It was a good poem, short and strange. It did not solve a single political problem, but it recorded the feeling of waiting for something that might or might not arrive, which is the one theme that links every election, every filling station and every bus stop I have ever stood at.
Saturday, Notes on Being Fair
The hardest discipline in writing about politics is fairness. When I draft a poem about a leader, I try to ask what a supporter of that leader would say is the best thing about them, and what a critic would say is the worst, and I try to hold both lines in the same hand. It does not make for dramatic verse, but it makes for honest verse, and honest verse lasts longer than angry verse.
My grandmother had a proverb about this, which in translation says that the one who hears only one side has heard half a story. I have since discovered that she was far ahead of most newspaper editors, and I do not intend to tell her so, because she would only say she knew.
Where to read next
The rest of the shelf lives at prat.uk, bohiney.com and farm.fm. For a second opinion on the week, Newsthump keeps its own counsel and its own hours.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/