The Right Side of History By Obinna Udenwe   Every evening, Tolani Boroface took a walk down her street all by herself, ignoring greetings from neighbours and street folk who looked at her with disdain. She had killed her daughter, they believed, and nothing anyone said could change their minds. Tolani walked to clear her head. This had started four days after Grace was buried – the rumours filtered to her ears that it was because she took her daughter to the End SARS protest that she got shot. Who encourages their children to go to protests in Nigeria? the women who had come to condole with her asked themselves. They’d gathered in front of her apartment, offering tidbits to the story, clasping their arms on their breasts, tying and retying their wrappers while at it. The women had come the morning after Grace died at the protest in Ikeja. At first, they came in groups of threes and fours, chatting on about the protests across the country all the way, then throwing themselves on the floor once they got to Tolani’s door, weeping uncontrollably. When they stepped out, they cleaned their eyes and talked loudly, not caring if Tolani heard. So, when Tolani finally heard, she began to take the walks. She would walk to the end of the street – to the junction where she used to go with Grace to buy fruits and vegetables, then walk back home and lock herself in. The fact that her neighbours and friends, people who’d known her for years and knew how much she’d adored Grace could say such unheard-of things tore her heart apart. On the sixth day after Grace died, Tolani locked herself in. She took some of Grace’s photos and her clothes, especially the ones she remembered seeing Grace in few days before her death and believed still had her smell. She took them into Grace’s room, sniffing and sobbing. Not even the laughter coming from her neighbour’s children distracted her. She cut herself with the kitchen knife and felt the blood from her stomach spilling through her fingers as she lay numb on the floor. Then she noticed a photo pinned to Grace’s wall. It was of three young women carrying a placard. The photo was taken at a Black Lives Matter protest somewhere and Grace had printed it from the internet. The white girl in the centre of the photograph was dressed in a sleeveless gown and wore sunglasses. The placard with her had the inscription ‘I stand on the right side of history’. Tolani thought the girl was Grace. The photo held her gaze and the inscription played in her mind. Suddenly, her cell phone rang. The phone was on the bed, and if Tolani could reach it, she could somehow live, for she now knew that Grace died standing on the right side of history, protesting injustice and hate, doing what many young people like her did across the world.         Breathing  poem-song by Pete Kalu   Please don’t come sliding onto my bench whispering nirvana is a construct and you’re here for us to do the construction  play by play to reach high, because That don’t fly for me, I need somebody grounded   There are journeys we have to go on and it won’t be easy, – the way you talk – it will require us to walk through storms  There are journeys we have to go on and it won’t be easy – the way you talk – it will require us to walk through storms   Truth is I’m looking for a friendship, a comrade-in-arms and together we’ll be the voice for those who can’t breathe any more Then maybe at days’ end, I won’t have any qualms If we sit back-to-back on evening steps, and doodle  🖤s on my door.   There are journeys we have to go on and it won’t be easy, – the way you talk – it will require us to walk through storms  There are journeys we have to go on and it won’t be easy – the way you talk – it will require us to walk through storms   Both texts produced as part of a British Council International Digital Collaboration Project @LitBritish #wahalaconvo Photo credit: Naomi...

    Letter from Manchester, UK: Black Lives Matter It is snowing here in Manchester, England, the evening of 7th January 2021.  I’ve been watching across media astonishing images of the US Capitol building being invaded by an aggrieved white mob. My mind turns to the summer of 2020 when the Black Lives Matter movement landed here in England. It ignited much soul-searching among the majority white population of England.  While triggered by the USA George Floyd video, there had been in advance of the Floyd video a groundswell of unease at police action in England, an unease that competed with the cuddly images of British police that have prevailed for decades in England, promulgated by  TV series from Z Cars in the 60’s all the way through to Inspector Morse and  Lewis of 2015. The bedrock moral position of these British TV cop series was the fundamental decency of the British police force.  There were of course voices that dissented from this cosy view, many of them black. The poet Linton Kwesi Johnson in his poetry/song collection Dread Beat and Blood (1975) in particular denounced the London police force’s Special Patrol Group (SPG: similar to Nigeria’s SARS). The SPG was disbanded in 1987. But police misconduct in England persisted. Most recently a documentary film called Ultra Violence (November 2020) held an unwavering gaze on continuing British police force brutality and state killing, particularly of black people, platforming the voices of numerous families who had lost members to brutal police hands and who have bravely campaigned at grassroots level against this ultra-violence. Something snapped here upon the release of the George Floyd video. Finally, abuse that had been hidden away, dismissed, denied or contested was caught on film in broad daylight and shown across the world. People in England were roused to righteous indignation. George Floyd, they were saying, is our experience too. Let me pause now to unpack the ‘our’ in the statement ‘our experience’.  Because it signals an important shift, and one that is observable in the photos taken of BLM events across England. There are black folk in the photos of protestors, yes, but also by many young white people: White people, especially the young ones, were owning their part in the problem. It is this shift that holds promise. Black power salutes being wielded by white youths in solidarity with their black friends. White privilege was finally being understood.  Of course, there is a backlash. The invasion of the US Capitol by White Supremacists is the most recent example. But no battle for justice is ever easy.  And in so far as the young people in England are on the side of fairness and prepared to stand up and be counted,  campaigning in public for an end to the brutality of the unjust use of force by police, in that measure, we can contemplate the future here with some confidence. Yes, it is a long game.  But this old head says that youth, mobilised in the cause of justice, is unstoppable and will bring about radical change. That’s my view from where I stand here in Manchester, England. How do you see it from where you are?   Sincerely,   Pete Kalu, Manchester, UK.   Photographer: Naomi Kalu A British Council  International Digital Collaboration Project @LitBritish...