An article was recently forwarded to me focused on how much the UK and France spend annually on ‘propaganda’ in Africa. The commentary within the article diminished BBC’s services in Africa, reducing them to mere propaganda and brainwashing.
If only it were that simple. For me, this issue is not binary.
As a child, my father would tune into the BBC whenever a coup was announced. Interestingly enough, we received more information through the BBC than from Nigerian stations, which mainly broadcasted martial music and information controlled by the military.
As I entered my teenage years, I became an avid short wave radio listener. At one point, I was picking up as many as sixty stations, collecting what were known as QSL cards from locations as distant as Surinam and Australia. This allowed me to diversify my information sources, hearing news from several countries’ perspectives. Yes, I admit there was a bit of the nerd in me.
Concurrently, during high school, my English teacher sparked our interest in Newsweek and Time magazines. This was especially true during significant global events such as the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II and the shooting of John Lennon. I particularly looked forward to his English lessons as he leveraged current events to for illustration. Some may accuse him of propagating Western propaganda, but his lessons were the most memorable.
In my first year at university, however, I became a Marxist and began consuming other left-leaning magazines like South, to which Michael Manley, former Prime Minister of Jamaica, contributed.
Despite being a Marxist, I still tuned into various news stations, including Voice of America (VOA), my favorite, and the BBC, as well as Radio France’s English service. The latter used to sign on with “This is Paris, Radio France International Media for Intercontinent” (my English rendition of the French sign-on call. I don’t speak French, but I heard this so many times). Life is not binary; one can be a Marxist and still appreciate content produced in Western democracies.
BBC signed on with “This is London”, followed by an instrumental version of a folk song called Lilliburlero: https://youtu.be/qoWqknwOq68 The VOA signed off with the ryhme “Yankee Doodle”. It wasn’t until much later, while raising our daughter, that I learned the words to Yankee Doodle. And only now, as I write this, did I discover more about Lilliburlero.
Was I imperialized and brainwashed? Perhaps in terms of my musical taste. Every week I listened to the UK’s top 10, introducing me to artists like Wham and the late George Michael. But I also learned about Musical Youth, who were black. I tuned into the equivalent on Voice of America (I believe it was called the Billboard chart), where black Americans like Michael Jackson, Grand Master Flash, and Whitney Houston were prominently featured. Being able to listen to this music before it appeared in Nigerian shops was something I valued. I was a still a fan of Fela Anikulapo Kuti and Bob Marley. My father played Fela’s music and a cousin introduced me to Bob Marley.
Could I fault the BBC and VOA for my lack of interest in local artists? Probably not. My peers from similar backgrounds, who never tuned into the BBC or VOA, shared similar musical tastes. In fact, during my five years at university, we welcomed Shalamar, Whispers, Lakeside, Third World to our campus. Not once did Sunny Ade or Obey visit, or at least I cannot recall any of their events.
It was on either the VOA or BBC that I heard about Professor Soyinka winning the Nobel Prize. On another occasion, I tuned in live to the VOA to follow the launch of Challenger, only for the spacecraft to explode within seconds—a sad but unforgettable moment in history which I was able to witness, thanks to VOA.
I trusted the BBC and VOA as sources of unbiased reporting until the Buhari/Idiagbon attempt to extradite Dikko back to Nigeria failed. The coverage on VOA and BBC was so biased that my illusion of fair reporting anywhere under the sun was shattered.
VOA was quite overt: every Saturday evening they would begin a short broadcast with “Here is an editorial reflecting the views of the United States of America”.
As a child, the boredom I experienced was alleviated by my interest in short wave radio. When I was growing up, mobile phones did not exist. Despite taking two modules in computer science department at university, I did not see a personal computer. I did not own one until I was 26 years old and living in the UK. Television did not broadcast until 4:30 pm on weekdays, though they started earlier at 10 am on weekends. Short wave radios served as a great distraction and a savior from boredom.
The BBC and VOA were the main courses, as their coverage lasted many hours each day, while the likes of Radio France offered only an hour a day in English.
I remained a Marxist until a few years after the fall of the Iron Curtain. When the curtin fell, we witnessed the hidden horrors of the past decades. Despite living in the UK and years of listening to “western propaganda”, I remained a Marxist until real events demonstrated to me that it was not an ideology fit for purpose. Marxism is ideal in theory but fails in practice.
Perhaps the BBC, VOA, Voice of Nigeria, Radio France, and others are methods of projecting countries’ soft power?
Looking at my generation of Nigerians, we are full of contradictions. We are highly critical of the West and often cheer for Russia and China. Yet, when we can afford it, our children are predominantly educated in the UK, America, and Canada. We choose to make the West our homes and continue to criticise the West while idolising China and Russia.
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