This Week in our World
New name for this newsletter, as I'm getting a milestone in subscribers: the journalist isn't story. At least, that's what journalism should be...
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Reporting the world, with a non-western gaze, and a regular African eye
22/07/2025
A message from Agence France Presse
Depuis que l’AFP a été fondée en août 1944, nous avons perdu des journalistes dans des conflits, nous avons eu des blessés et des prisonniers dans nos rangs, mais aucun de nous n’a le souvenir d’avoir vu un collaborateur mourir de faim. Nous refusons de les voir mourir.
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In English:
The AFP Journalists’ Association has issued a stark warning that its staff in Gaza are at risk of starving to death.
One of the 10 freelancers working with the French news agency posted on social media on 19 July: “I don’t have the strength to work for the media. My body is thin and I can’t work.”
AFP said many of its Gaza-based journalists can no longer carry out their duties due to extreme hunger. “Their heartbreaking calls for help are now daily,” the association said.
While the journalists continue to receive their monthly salaries, AFP noted there is often nothing available to purchase, or basic goods are sold at unaffordable prices.
“We fear we will hear news of their deaths at any moment, and that is unbearable,” the group said.
“Since AFP’s founding in August 1944, we’ve lost colleagues in war zones, seen others wounded or imprisoned—but never have we watched someone die from hunger. We won’t accept it.”
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La Direction de l’AFP partage l’angoisse exprimée par la SDJ quant à la situation effroyable de ses collaborateurs dans la bande de Gaza. Depuis des mois nous assistons, impuissants, à la détérioration dramatique de leurs conditions de vie. Leur situation est aujourd’hui intenable, malgré un courage, un engagement professionnel et une résilience exemplaires. C'est pourquoi l’AFP, qui était parvenue après plusieurs mois d'efforts à faire évacuer ses huit salariés de Gaza et leurs familles entre janvier et avril 2024, entreprend les mêmes démarches pour ses collaborateurs pigistes, malgré l’extrême difficulté de sortir d’un territoire soumis à un blocus strict. Depuis le 7 octobre, Israël interdit l’accès de la bande de Gaza à tous les journalistes internationaux. Dans ce contexte, le travail de nos pigistes palestiniens est capital pour l’information du monde. Mais leur vie est en danger, aussi exhortons-nous les autorités israéliennes à autoriser leur évacuation immédiate avec leurs familles.
21/07/2025
A story on journalism and diverse voices
My story of the day...
This month, I pitched an American magazine a feature about the legacy of Frantz Fanon, ahead of his centenary...
I wrote that I:
-was encouraged to contact them a few years ago by a friend and researcher for a US think tank;
-had pitched a few times before...
-have been writing about minorities in France and the UK for about 15 years, and worked as an African news journalist for the BBC World Service, DW then RFI, covering Kenya, Uganda, Somalia, C.A.R, South Africa, Senegal, Tunisia, and Algeria - where my family is from;
-did extensive research on Fanon's work in 2017/18, for a potential film project (still in the making), meeting his son, Olivier; his former intern, Alice Cherki; many researchers who wrote on Fanon's work, friends of Fanon, including Elaine Mokhtefi, who worked with him in Africa and was the last to see him before his death;
-interviewed in April a French Caribbean who directed a feature film on Fanon, released in France to much success: over 200,000 entries in cinemas;
-also talked to one of his main biographers at a book festival in April too, and we were about to discuss further, ahead of the actual birth date, July 20;
- was about to interview another filmmaker, African American, whose feature length social-justice documentary delves into Fanon's writing on race as a psychiatrist, philosopher, and activist, and worked closely with the Frantz Fanon Foundation, created by Mireille Fanon, his daughter...
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The magazine praises itself to do such work:
"We began as a global affairs magazine focused primarily on the Middle East because we felt that this region, for so long the center of U.S. foreign policy, needed far more coverage from those who have lived and worked there. Many of our staff cut their teeth covering revolutions, wars and terrorism across different countries in the Middle East — often from the perspective of someone born and raised in places on which they were reporting."
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Well, what happened is that:
-They never replied (though they had encouraged me to pitch the first time I contacted them.
-They never replied (though they had encouraged me to pitch the first time I contacted them.
-And this week I saw the magazine had published a piece with almost no interviews, just quotes from books, from a white male American, Paris-based journalist...
Someone who has already quit his daily job and moved on to cycle over Europe this summer, to chose to move back to the US and to work freelance (can obviously afford it despite the current climate!).
Someone who has already quit his daily job and moved on to cycle over Europe this summer, to chose to move back to the US and to work freelance (can obviously afford it despite the current climate!).
No need to say, he's not been to Algeria or the Caribbean, or elsewhere Africa.
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Sometimes, and more than ever in 2025, I wonder how naive I must have been to have chosen such a profession.
Even when media say they want to improve diversity of journalists - whether in terms of class, of gender, or of origins, even when they can do so, when they have the opportunity to do so, they still choose an upper-middle class white man who doesn't need a salary.
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If you care the slightest about my perspective on Fanon... Well, it seems you'll have to wait.
But because I'm primarily a journalist and not a memoirist cycling across Europe, I did my job and interview someone, who speaks brilliantly about Fanon and you can listen to him here:
Interview on Frantz Fanon with film director Rico Speight, from Harlem
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If you can a bit more, you can subscribe to my free newsletter on Substack (where sadly, you'll never read about my cycling ventures, but you can read news and features from the perspective of a woman, a North African born in Europe, from a working-class, immigrant background, an African-news specialist, focusing on interviewing Global South voices, for what it's worth in 2025):
UK, France, EU and 20 other nations call for an immediate end to war in Gaza
LONDON, July 21 (Reuters) - Britain and more than 20 other countries called on Monday for an immediate end to the war in Gaza and criticised the Israeli government's aid delivery model after hundreds of Palestinians were killed near sites distributing food.
France, Italy, Japan, Australia, Canada, Denmark and other countries said more than 800 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid and condemned what it called the "drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians".
The majority of those killed were in the vicinity of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) sites, which the United States and Israel backed to take over aid distribution in Gaza from a network led by the United Nations.
"The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity," the countries' foreign ministers said in a joint statement.
The call for an end to the war and the way Israel delivers aid comes from several countries which are allied with Israel and its most important backer, the United States.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation uses private U.S. security and logistics companies to get supplies into Gaza, largely bypassing a U.N.-led system that Israel alleges has let Hamas-led militants loot aid shipments intended for civilians. Hamas denies the accusation.
The U.N. has called the GHF’s model unsafe and a breach of humanitarian impartiality standards, which GHF denies.
One song for tonight: Björk's 'Unison'
Long journey... more travels, more buses, trains, more thoughts about borders...
And reminiscence of a different times, when I had so much more faith in our societies's ability to defend our core values, freedom, equal rights, peace...
18/07/2025
'Standing by the ruins' - Dana Awartani at Arnolfini arts, Bristol
Very timely, inspiring and heartbreaking exhibition by Palestinian Saudi multidisciplinary artist Dana Awartani at Arnolfini arts, Bristol: 'Standing by the ruins', on cultural erasure, emotional connections to landscapes and healing memories in Arab cultures, from Syria to Palestine via Iraq...
The exhibition features key works including Come, let me heal your wounds. Let me mend your broken bones (2024), commissioned for the 2024 Venice Biennale, alongside the new commission Standing by the Ruins III (2025).
This latest work, created with a collective of craftsmen from Riyadh who specialise in adobe earth restoration, rebuilds the intricate Ottoman-influenced floor design of Gaza’s Hamam al-Sammara – once among the region’s oldest bathhouses, now believed to have been destroyed by the ongoing bombardment of Gaza by the Israeli military.
"Standing by the ruins brings together existing works with a major new commission in a moving exploration of love and loss, destruction and the passage of time," the gallery said.
"Awartani – a Palestinian-Saudi artist – addresses the physical loss of cultural heritage through the lens of abandoned, destroyed and vanishing places. Working across painting, installation, textiles, performance and film, she draws attention to both the human act of making and human loss, reflecting upon the ravages of conflict within the Middle East and architectural modernisation ingrained with colonial legacy."
28 June - 28 September 2025, 11:00 - 18:00
Free entry (suggested donation £5)
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Photos by myself
Donald Locke at Spike Island gallery, Bristol
The first major survey exhibition of Guyanese-British artist Donald Locke (1930–2010) is currently on display at the Spike Island art gallery in Bristol.
His work drew a strong path to explore issues linked history, identity and the threads of the British empire through time and space.
His paintings and sculptures offer reflections on the legacies of colonialism, in his native Guyana and beyond, but also the racial politics of the American Civil War, exploring plantation architecture and military domination through additions of photographs and collage techniques.
According to the curator, "Locke wanted to give form and visibility to the unique and hybrid contributions of Black culture to modernity, which is evident in the broad range of materials and stylistic approaches that he adopted throughout his career."
The works are so strong and their presentation is really powerful.
Visual insight here:
Born and raised in Guyana, Locke first moved to the UK in the 1950s and studied at Bath Academy of Art and Edinburgh School of Art. He then lived between London and Georgetown for the next twenty years, before settling in the United States in the late 1970s.
His son Hew Locke, became a wonderful artist too. I had the chance to interview him at Tate Britain in 202" (you can read my article for Art UK here) and to present a conversation with him at the Royal Academy the following year.
17/07/2025
Substack newsletter: New Post
From Bristol, with Bogotá and Gaza on my mind
Summer should be a time for joy and restful adventures. Let's see if we can do that despite the state of the world.
From Bristol, with Bogotá and Gaza on my mind
Summer should be a time for joy and restful adventures. Let's see if we can do that despite the state of the world.
16/07/2025
Save Café Kino
Café Kino needs your support!
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/save-cafe-kino?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAafwAQbncpSpIkRjO-Ar5gFTBEFCGF10NhGv7X_uJpx-hyRn6BPzg3sn47st1Q_aem_kgkVzBLX4EArEWH0n8ri5A
After 20 amazing years of serving our community in Stokes Croft, Café Kino is at a critical crossroads. Like so many independent spaces, they’ve been hit hard by the ongoing financial crisis—and now need help to keep this vital community space alive.
Kino has always been more than just a café. It’s a home for creativity, connection, and inclusivity, and they’re determined not only to save it but to transform it into an even more vibrant hub for the future.
With support, Kino could be saved from closure, renovated, enhance the café and event spaces and continue providing a space to gather, create, and inspire.
Every contribution—big or small—brings them closer to securing Café Kino’s future.
If you can’t donate, sharing this post with your network makes a huge difference!
Time is running out, so please, if in Bristol and in love with Kino like I am, join in saving this cherished community space.
PLEASE DONATE ✨💖
Link to DONATE :
15/07/2025
...to laugh or cry?
"These days, all I talk about and think about is the cognitive dissonance required to move through the world. Increasingly, I struggle to disentangle my many selves, to get on with the day. All my selves weep often. I try to have grace. I tell my friends that I’m no longer sure how anyone just drifts through the days, the months, without acknowledging the horrors. I imagine what it must be like to be able to turn off the parts of the world that unsettle you. It must feel like existing in an animated universe that adheres to cartoon physics: you fall from an inconceivable height and, landing, a cloud of dust billows up from the ground, but then you shake yourself off and keep moving."
>> From this New Yorker essay:
Zohran Mamdani and Mahmoud Khalil Are in on the Joke
What it feels like to laugh when the world expects you to disappear.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/essay/zohran-mamdani-and-mahmoud-khalil-are-in-on-the-joke
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