The Sportolitics of Art

 

I ignored most of the events that commemorated the abolition of the Slave Trade Act of 1807. Why? Because what I heard from the various sources that were staging them, didn’t reconcile with what my parents had taught me about being an African. It felt so disconnected from me. At any rate, I hold faith that much of what was produced, if it was of value, will be available long after 31 December 2007, if I change my mind.

As a colleague, Maureen Roberts, who works for the London Metropolitan Archives said, “It has been possible to go to some events which just paid lip service at best, events which were just wrong, because whoever thought them up shouldn’t have been in charge of boiling the kettle for the tea break, and events which have been absolutely fantastic, uplifting, informative or amazing.”

One fantastic, informing and moving event for me, was the play, Rough Crossings. Being from Sierra Leone, I witnessed a dramatisation involving characters that could have been direct descendants of mine. A future hope and dream is that one day, this play can be performed in Sierra Leone. My mind is already active on how this could be made to work.

The ‘bicentenary’ events held in 2007 hold much the same concerns for many that Black History Month does (in that it needs highlighting for more than one month of the year), in this case, more than just 12 months in a decade – that it is history that needs to factor prominently – and properly – as part of British history, as well as African history, particularly as its effects on nations and its people’s who bore the brunt of the “Slave Trade” legacy, have lasted until today. Therefore, such adjectives used throughout 2007 to describe slavery and the trade as, ‘horrific’, ‘tragic’ and ‘abominable’ became almost nonsensical clichés – nonsensical because they were unnecessary – the very word itself – ‘slave’ – denotes the situation. How else does one describe an act of genocide if not, ‘horrific?’

Description of the ‘events’ were similarly mis-used, and mis-labelled, often being termed as a ‘celebration’. A celebration? Of what? I paraphrase an MP who appeared on BBC’s Question Time, “we should celebrate the fact that Wilberforce brought this abominable trade to an end.” He was warmly applauded. Yet, Yvonne Thompson of EBWO was not, after she explained quite coherently that Caribbean islands that had been used as plantations were still suffering from this legacy, and that a sensible way forward for reparations, was not necessarily to focus on individuals, but instead to consider reparations for nations. The MP missed something basic, neither the beginning, the middle passage, or the passing of the Act was about Wilberforce – it was about African people – so it is not surprising that he also missed the fact they were not celebrating – at the loss of family members; the destruction of family life and the unwelcome invitation of new, killer diseases.

I personally only became involved in two abolition events. The first was in Portsmouth where I was invited by the African Women’s Forum to open an exhibition of children’s work (poems, art, recordings etc.) at the Royal Naval Museum for their ‘Breaking the Chain’ project. The invitation from their chair, Marie Costa stated, ‘We are not only commemorating the passage of the Bill but the destruction wreaked on African countries, the lives of those lost in the Middle Passage, the lives lost and sufferings of those on the West Indies Plantations and we will finally celebrate those who, in spite of their adversity, fought back and survived the harshness of this type of inhuman treatment. Our project has been encompassing, based on making the wider public in our area, aware of this ‘hidden’ part of British history which is missed out of the national curriculum.”

Marie described the organisation as a ‘struggling small African group’ made up from ‘approximately one thousand of African and African Caribbeans out of 186,701 peoples in Portsmouth, (according to the census of 2001).’ Yet, their objectives and the fact that this was an indigenous community of African women in Britain, rang the right alarm bells for me. I mention this group and their series of events in detail as we can so often get caught up just in our communities on our doorsteps. But I believe that African diasporan people are one community, whether they are in the same city, country, or continent. Hence, a main motivation for me to open the exhibition on 30 September was also because I saw it as an opportunity to connect with my sisters, who are just a few hours travel from me and whom I knew nothing about.

It was the first time in the year when I closely read and looked at material produced to commemorate this bicentenary occasion. A piece that I remember clearly was a short poem, overlaid with a sketch of a pregnant African woman in chains. The person brought into work with these young people was Ken Williams. Partnership and support from the museum, also meant, that their organisation could do their own African catering. This may seem a minor point but most venues no longer allow this, and it affects our rights to uphold our culture and quite visibly affects the authenticity of what we are trying to achieve.

The other project that I became involved in was FWords: Creative Freedom in Yorkshire which involved the promotion of six writers and two visual artists - (www.peepaltreepress.com). The group are using the project to support the David Oluwale Memorial Campaign and plan, as part of the project to put an artist memorial (as well as work directly with the committee) in the Mary Seacole Gardens situated in Leeds.

An occurrence that took place in 2007 that will undoubtedly have a long term negative effect on Britain was the severe slashing of Arts Council Funding by 35% to assist the funding of the Olympics.

A nation is judged by many things – there is no denying that one of these is sports – equally, another is its arts and culture, so cutting one, to feed the other, is like a person in debt, taking one loan, to pay another. It doesn’t always mean consolidation - in this case, it is mutilation.

Just before Christmas, 194 RFO’s (regularly funded organisations), were hit even further. Organisations such as Drill Hall Arts Centre, the UK’s leading theatre for lesbian and gay theatre, the National Student Drama Festival and the Centerprise Literature Development Project have all had significant cuts or their funding totally withdrawn. Centerprise, which re-invented itself from a community publishing project in 1995 to a literature development one, represents a thirty year era that the Arts Council has decided to put to rest with its founder, the late publishing pioneer, Glenn Thompson, (publisher of books such as, In the Defense of Mumia and the groundbreaking, In the Tradition, edited by Ras Baraka and Kevin Powell). In contrast the Poetry School, which barely acknowledges poets of African or Asian descent as tutors escapes the funding cull unscathed. The school’s main claim to ethnic diversity fame is that ten years ago one of its founders was the Iranian, Mimi Khalvati - this is not good enough. The problems run deeper than simply recognising that these organisations funding has been cut, as this financial upset automatically affects their other funding sources. With so much grant giving now relying on match funding, a cut from one supporter, could equally lead to a cut from another since their funds no longer ‘match’. In general, they will have to plug these financial gaps by the next financial year – just three months away. Granted, organisations have been warned that this was going to happen, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.

Personally, the words RFO and ‘core funding’ are ones that I have come to shy away from as it is a bag of mixed blessings. Although “regularly funded” equals highly regarded, and a status which then attracts other funders, there are obvious dangers, and one of these is that it is too easy to become cocooned into a false sense of security.

The Arts Council though, have endorsed new organisations to receive core funding and have continued to support others, sometimes with increased funds. Some of these are ones that black folks can and should take advantage of. These include the Roundhouse in Camden, which has had its funding almost doubled; Peepal Tree Press, the home of Caribbean and Black British Writing and The Arvon Foundation (www.arvonfoundation.org) which runs writing residential courses around the country and has received increased funding specifically for bursaries, to assist those who may not otherwise be able to afford it, to attend one of their courses. For this, they have to reach out to people with a wider ethnic remit. SABLE LitMag has organised courses with them before, and is likely to do so again in the near future.

This cut in Arts Council funding is the most direct signal yet that the day has come when the reliance on grant funding is over. It means that the need to move to seek other sources of support, in terms of sponsorship, partnership and possibly looking at the new charity status of a ‘not for profit’ limited company is urgent and imminent – and simply just a more creative, dynamic and probably aggressive way of looking at how to raise funds. This situation has regressed and damaged the state of the arts in Britain not only for the medium term but probably for the long term too because once the Olympics are over, these diverted funds are hardly likely to be re-instated in any significant way.

Some naïve individuals would think that people of African descent in Britain should be pleased – after all – the oncoming Olympics fits one of the stereotypes of people of African descent since sport is one of the few things that we are led to believe we excel at. But, what does this really mean in practice? As far as the arts are concerned, that they should retract funding from this already under financed area. I struggle with this.

Was 2007 so bleak? No more so than any other year, and amazing, historic things did take place. Barack Obama announced his stand for candidacy in February, to lead the Democratic Party into the White House, and signs are already looking strong that he could become the first American President of African descent.

And what of 2008? It could be the year that ID cards are forced upon us, if not in 2008, certainly by the Olympics (it will be used as an excuse); and the year when £1000 bonds, are introduced, effectively preventing our families and friends from coming over to the UK to visit us (will this be used as an excuse for finding a way to reduce the carbon footprint?) Are we just going to sit back and watch this happen?

In 2008, two African owned organisations celebrate their 10th successful year - The Comedy School with founder and director, Keith Palmer (www.thecomedyschool.com) and Teata Fahodzi (which means Theatre of the Emancipated), with founder and artistic director, Femi Elufowoju Jr. (www.tiatafahodzi.com). They both will have a series of celebratory events, some of them, fun(d)raisers. Please support them.

What I would like to see is premier league football clubs, or their footballers and other sports personalities, who earn over £100,000 a week (no artist I know earns this, even in a year), give 35% of their salary (tax deductible) to fund an Olympic sized Global Celebration of the Arts in 2016. And perhaps the next time there is a Black bookfair at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, we can get chin-chin and suya instead of popcorn and hotdogs.

Kadija Sesay