Ep.17: Zeinab Badawi | Journalist & Broadcast | Great success comes from great courage
Meet Zeinab Badawi, Sudanese-born British Television and Radio Journalist. Zeinab has worked extensively in the British media for four decades and is best known for her work at BBC World News TV and on BBC World Service Radio, on programs such as Hard Talk and Global Questions. Zeinab is the current chair of the Royal African Society and a director of the Royal Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. She also serves on the advisory boards of the think tanks Afrobarometer and the Mandela Institute for Development Studies (MINDS). Zeinab is a member of the steering committee of the Africa Europe Foundation and a trustee of BBC Media Action. She has produced and presented an acclaimed 20-part TV series on the history of Africa, reporting from over 30 countries across the continent, and speaks to Mungi about how important this project was to her. Listen to this episode to hear how Zeinab got into broadcast journalism and some of the lessons she has learned from the public figures she has interviewed, including the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Thank you to our partners at HarperCollins for their support of today’s episode!
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Full Episode Transcript
Mungi: Hi, I'm Mungi welcome to the Everyday Ubuntu podcast this week's episode of Everyday Ubuntu is brought to you by our partners at Harper Collins, Canada Harper Collins is always pushing the boundaries of publishing, supporting authors and stories outside of the mainstream. That addresses notions of gender sexuality.
I just finished reading the novel black girls must die exhausted by author Jane Allen. And I could not put it down. The book story is centered around a successful young black woman who seems to have it all a great dating life, a beautiful home, and a great job. However, an unexpected fertility crisis puts the protagonists in a tailspin.
If you're looking for a fall read that examines the experiences of race, contemporary womanhood, and modern relationships. Pick up a copy. The second novel in the series, black girls must be magic is coming in winter 2022.
Zeinab: The people who have impressed me the most are those who take what they do seriously without taking themselves seriously.
Mungi: This week, my guest is the renowned journalist and broadcaster Zeinab Badawi. Zeinab has extensive experience in television and radio, working on a range of programs, including the BBC's HARDtalk.
She's also the current chair of the Royal African society. Queen's appointment to the board of the historic Royal palaces and a vice president of the United Nations association. Through her own production company, Kush communications, she has produced and presented many programs, including her most treasured project history of Africa.
She shares with me the lessons she's learned from her very impressive guests, as well as why she calls women's education, the family business. Here's our conversation.
Zeinab Badawi thank you so much for coming on the Everyday Ubuntu podcast.
Zeinab: Thank you. Mungi great to be with
Mungi: you. I'm excited. And so I'd love to ask you my first question. It's about how our resumes are not a full explanation of who we are as a person. And I'm wondering what you would say is missing from your resume that people should know about.
Zeinab: That's a lovely question. Let me see. I suppose I'd have to say, my four children. I gave birth to two sons and two daughters boys on the outside girls on the inside. So I think of my children as a sandwich, the boys are the bread on the outside and the girls are the filling, the very substantial filling.
Mungi: I love that child
Zeinab: are important. Of course. Yes. Look, they're important to me, obviously. I think people can read a very rich and happy and successful life without having children. But I, for me personally, wouldn't be anywhere without them. So I guess my identity as a mother is the overwhelming one and I absolutely adore every single one of them.
Mungi: And, speaking of your resume, it's very extensive and you've done a lot, but I wonder what you would say is your purpose work.
Zeinab: My purpose work. That's an interesting way of presenting it. I do a lot of work, unpaid pro bono for a number of organizations in the public sphere, in the humanitarian world.
And I have actually tried to marry my paid employment, the work I do as a broadcast journalist with my interests. So actually I feel that I have been very fortunate because I've managed to create a life of meaning and purpose, both in my paid employment. The work that I do pays the bills as well as the work that I do.
Just, on a voluntary basis. So for example, that would be working in humanitarian organizations or advocacy organizations, such as article 19, which is the London-based organization, that advocates for freedom of speech. I chaired that many years ago, the Royal African society, which promotes a greater understanding of African affairs in all its manifestations.
So I guess I would have to say both my. Work that I do to earn a living as well as the unpaid stuff. The two dovetail I've made sure of that. That's the
Mungi: dream,
Zeinab: It is actually, I am very fortunate. Some people play it differently. Don't they have their work and? They do it very in a very committed fashion during work hours
and then they may have outside non-work interests that engage them. I, on the other hand, the way I, my approach doesn't give you a lot of downtimes because if you marry your interest with your work, then it means you never really switch off. And I'm very interested in using current affairs and all over my house.
I have millions of radios dotted everywhere, and I'm constantly putting them on because I never really switch off. I'm mad about opera. I love opera Italian opera. And so what do I do? I sit on the board of the Royal opera house and I also make films about opera. I guess that is the way I do it.
You
Mungi: know, speaking of your work, how did you get into media and journalism?
Zeinab: Do you know the world of journalism that I joined about 40 years ago is very different from the world of journalism today, there is so much more of it today than there was when I first entered it. It was a very easy path for me.
And I had studied philosophy, politics, and economics at university. I was lucky enough to be at Oxford University in England. And after I left Oxford. I did another year of study in languages thinking that they would help me in whatever it is I wanted to do. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do. And then I did exactly what I was just setting out, which is, I thought, what am I interested in?
And I thought I'm interested in politics and current affairs and so on. So let me try and work on television. So I didn't go into print journalism. I went straight into television and so I applied for a job as a trainee at independent television and got a job. And that was it. So it was very easy.
Mungi: Wow. And is there, tell me if this question makes sense, but is there something about your role as an interviewer of those in public life that has left a lasting impression on you? Whether that's someone's bravery or perseverance or philosophy, is there someone, or has there been a theme that has really stuck with you?
Zeinab: Oh, I've done so many interviews that it's difficult to answer that. Yeah. I know people from all walks of life, from presidents right down. But I suppose what I would say is the people who have impressed me the most are those who take what they do seriously without taking themselves seriously.
And I think that they are the people I admire the most. So for example, Desmond Tutu, the Archbishop in South Africa or the Dalai Lama, and, I am very privileged. I get a chance to interview all sorts of people and on a program called hard to talk, which is, quite a long-format interview, 24 minutes, I'm sitting opposite somebody.
So you can get a sense of them because it's a fairly intense experience. And I would say that what I've learned from them is the importance of humor as well in diffusing tensions. And so it's a kind of adjunct to not taking yourself seriously. For example, I said to Archbishop Desmond Tutu in an interview, I said, president Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has described you as an evil, nasty little interfering Bishop.
He looked at me, a look of horror. And I thought, oh my goodness, I shouldn't have been so meaningful asking that question. And then a few seconds later, his shoulders shake up and down and he's laughing and he says, did he really say that? And he's, Overcomes with mirth. And then and I thought that's one way of dealing with criticism.
You brush it off by having that kind of reaction. It shows what you actually think of it rather than becoming very combative and thinking of, an equally rude repost. And so I guess that's what I've learned from people and not to be evasive. I think. Being truthful or as truthful as you can, because sometimes you can't always say everything you want to, you may compromise somebody's security and so on and so forth.
But I suppose they are that's the lesson I've learned and, people think that television, you can dissemble on television, but actually television is quite good at spotting, frauds as it were it doesn't like mendacity or people who look like their perhaps evading the truth.
So I've always tried to be as, as honest and as direct as I can and not to take myself seriously and where it is not in bad taste or it's acceptable is, to deal with some, if you have a. Relaxed and, approach and also to diffuse some situations with humor. ,
Mungi: It's funny that you mentioned that because my grandfather's turning 90 in October, and I wanted to write some lessons that he had taught me.
And the two things you just said about him were the first two things I wrote down was the humor and the not to take yourself too seriously. Yeah. Just very, it's just, I think it's what he sorta taught
Zeinab: everyone his birthday in October speaking as somebody who's also an October. Oh, so say to Your grandfather, he's in good company.
Tell him, hi, Zainab is Libra. Like I'm a bit earlier in the month, but yeah. I think also what I. I think I have learned from people I've interviewed is also the need to communicate effectively. And you can, I can interview the cleverest people in the world, but if they can use obfuscatory language or cannot relay complex thoughts in a simple way, it's a complete waste of time.
So I think that ability to communicate. In a simple way is also a very important one. A complex idea expressed in a simple way is much more powerful than one that's relayed in a complicated way. And sometimes I do find that people are trying to impress others with their knowledge and end up being very convoluted.
I suppose there are some of the lessons I've learned. Yes. Yes.
Mungi: And speaking of evasion, I know that you were the first person from Western media to interview Omar Abdel share after he was indicted by the ICC. And then wondering, I don't know, how do you prepare for something like that?
And. How do you feel it went? What would success look like in that situation?
Zeinab: Yeah, so that was back in 2009 and he was president and of course, 10 years later in 2019 Rashid was toppled from power by a people's revolution in Sudan. Speaking specifically about that interview, I was born in Sudan, but I've lived in the UK since I was two years of age.
So that was a somewhat unusual interview for me to undertake. So when you ask how I prepared for that, it's it, wasn't a very difficult one because obviously having. Been brought up by Sudanese parents. And although I've lived in the UK since I was an infant, I obviously was very aware of the country and what was going on and I can speak Arabic fluently.
And the interview was conducted in Arabic. I asked him the questions in English and they were translated for him. And I could understand him more than that. That kind of interview. Wasn't a particularly hard one for me to prepare for. It was a scoop, it was an exclusive, it was great to have got, I won an award for it, so that was fairly gratifying.
But in general, terms, when you prepare for an interview with somebody who has to be held accountable, Then you make sure you do your homework. You make sure that you're not advancing your opinions yourself. I'm not saying, look, I think you're a war criminal. You've got to say so-and-so has said that you've got a case to answer and that person has got to be somebody of substance.
It has got to be somebody where they can't shoot the messenger in order to diminish the message. If it's from somebody from the United Nations, somebody who hasn't got an ax to grind then that's the best way of presenting the arguments to that person. And just ensuring that they answer the question and they answer, and you say, I'm sorry, but you've not actually addressed the specific point I was making.
So you've got to be fairly tenacious. You've got to stand your ground. It's a fairly, it can be an intimidatory kind of atmosphere you're in, I've been in interviews where I'm surrounded by the teams or the person I'm interviewing. And if it's felt to be a bit sympathetic or a bit hard, you can sense the body language around the energy.
Yeah and the whistling and so on and you've just got to carry on and I'm not intimidated at all. And sometimes. Somebody might try to throw you a few seconds just before the recording starts. I've had that kind of tactic thrown at me to try to throw me off balance, but you know what? I don't scare easily.
So that's the that's does that answer your question? Yes,
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And, you mentioned that you are also from the continent and I'd love if you could speak about your history of Africa series and what you were hoping people will take away from it, it would have taken away from if they've seen it. And also I read that it was your sort of most valuable project to date, and I'd love to know why.
Zeinab: Yeah you've hit the, you press the passion button there. So how long have you got, I know this podcast only lasts for half an hour or so, but okay. Yeah. Yeah. You know what? Yeah. I've worked in broadcast media for 40 years and I'd have to say that this is the one project that I really absolutely value above all the others and 20 45 minute programs.
Setting out the history of Africa as best I could, obviously you can't do justice to the history of a continent through many centuries in that amount of time. But I am satisfied that if you watch the series, you will know much more about Africa than you did. You hopefully will be entertained along the way.
Although, obviously a lot of the subject matter is quite harrowing and you'll also most importantly, be stimulated to want to know more. And it took me nearly seven years to make this series from beginning to end. And the reason why I believe it's unique is, first of all, it's derives its knowledge and its research from a project, which is uniquely called the general history of Africa, which was conducted under the auspices of UNESCO, the United Nations, educational sciences, and cultural organization at the behest of African leaders in the early 1960s.
They said, look, we've decolonized our countries. We want to decolonize our history. It's either been written by outsiders denigrated, or we've been told we don't have any. So I based my research on that, but what's so magnificent about this work. Is that it's Africa's history written and told for the large part by Africans themselves.
And that's what I replicated in the series everywhere I went. It's not really a history of countries because there are 54 countries in Africa and there aren't 54 programs. And obviously, a lot of these countries were created quite recently being, in the last 150 years or 130 years or so.
But everywhere I went, I would only speak to people from that country, Ethiopia, Ethiopians, Marley, Marlin's, Congo, Brazzaville, Congolese people, and so on and so forth. That is very powerful. It's not me Zeinab badawi going around telling you this is what I think is pontificating. It's actually, I act more as a kind of intercessor between the viewer and the experts and the ordinary people I also spoke to because how they see their history is important.
And the film crews I use everywhere. In the telling of the story, it's also important to ensure that those people who capture the images are also from that country. And I just feel that ancient Africa has been neglected and that the vision of how we see Africa, has been frozen in time, colonialism may have died, but the way many people view and think of Africa is still frozen in colonial thinking.
Absolutely. That's what this series tries to overturn to say, look, Africa has a history institution’s culture, which is worthy of examination. And I believe that that is what this has done. It stands the test of time. It's based on real scholarship, huge amounts of research. What is the figure for the number of enslaved Africans who crossed the Atlantic during the three centuries of the transatlantic slave trade 12 and a half million, that figure alone took a great deal of research to uncover with the help of UNESCO, and every fact is not only double-checked but triple-checked?
So it's and I'm now working on a book. This is drawing on some of the information I garnered in the series, which is a kind of basic general readership about Africa's history, because Africa's history, didn't just start with the transatlantic slave trade. There's a history of which we as Africans.
And that includes me of course, should be extremely proud. And I don't make comparisons. I don't say, oh, this was what was going on in Europe and so on. No. This is just Africa's history. Telling it as it is.
Mungi: I appreciate that because it moves away from this sort of being a voice for the voiceless, as people love to say, and just, giving someone your platform and letting people tell their own stories.
Zeinab: Absolutely. The African historian anthropologists, archeologists. Cultural expert museum directors have been excluded from the international public space. You don't hear them speak. You don't hear Africans talking about, the history that they are an expert in. I go to the kingdom of Benin in Nigeria and I speak to a marvelous professor.
He's from Beneen, his Ph.D. is from Germany. Okay, fine. It makes history much more evocative and believable and genuine when it is told from. By the people themselves rather than so it's, the African historian is put center stage rather than the African nation. There are many good Africanists, don't get me wrong.
Brit British French historians who are very sympathetic approach to the continent and writes very well. But I just do believe that, for too long, perhaps they have dominated to the detriment of the African intellectual and it's time they claimed their place, what would people say if you had a Kenyan
talking to you about king Henry, the eighth, the Tudor king in the 16th century in the UK, people would think, why is this Kenyan historian telling me here in Britain about a British king? It seems odd when you turn it around, doesn't it, but equally, why should you know white german tells you the story about king Chaka the Zulus, rather than somebody from Southern Africa, South Africa, themselves.
So I think there is, we have to invert that telescope and put the Africans and it's not giving it. Yeah. In a sense, it's not that they're voiceless their voices there and willing to be heard. It's just, nobody has really put them there. I think there have been some marvelous people, who've done histories of Africa Henry Louis Gates Jr.
The African-American Every eminent African-American and so on. But I still Allie, missRue, the Kenyan late academic, but he focused only on east Africa, really on the whole, whereas this is the entire continent. And I just think there's something very special about letting people tell their own stories, do them the courtesy.
Of letting them do that. Do you know what I mean? I do give them the courtesy, listen to them. So it's not a plug for my series but it's all there available free of charge to anybody. Who's got access to the internet, BBC Africa, YouTube, the history of Africa with Zainab Badawi. Please watch. It's good.
If you can watch it from one to 20, but every episode is standalone. So if you prefer to do it that way and just plug into each episode that you are most interested in, that also works, but essentially it is better to watch it from the beginning to the end, but please do, and, make comments on the pages.
Definitely.
Mungi: We spoke earlier about how your sort of interests is intertwined with your work. And I wonder what sort of sustains you in difficult moments, like you said, that you don't really slow down and so what keeps you going when you are upset or exhausted when you're having a tough time?
Zeinab: I'm a very optimistic kind of person and. I have had four children. I had them very close in age that I actually don't have the luxury to dwell on anything too much. That's the truth. My, my youngest child turned 21 and is only just finished university. And so I am at a time in my life where for the first time, so maybe ask me that again in six months or a year, but I really never had downtime in all in which I could either bask in any kind of, feeling down.
That's the honest truth. But I exercise, I think that physical wellbeing is very closely associated with mental wellbeing. So I do that. I don't drink, I don't smoke. I've been a lifelong Teetotaller. I'm not a binge eater, comfort eater, although I do eat chocolate every day. I don't know.
I think I, yeah, I am just so busy all the time that actually, I haven't really suffered from really, bad down moments. The Dalai Lama gave me a shawl when I met him and interviewed him, which he blessed and gave to me. And he's a very, regardless of what religion you pursue, he's a very spiritual man and really a very charming, lovely interview.
Very humanitarian, very humane. And he gave me ashore and I liked that. And so I suppose, yes that's my kind of little, totemic possession, which I keep in my study, and every now and again, I may run my fingers through it. So perhaps I would say it would be that,
Mungi: oh, that's lovely. And I'm a big proponent of girls' education.
And I read somewhere about how girls’ education is like a family business. And I'm wondering if you could explain that to my list.
Zeinab: My great-grandfather was the pioneer of female education in the Sudan where I was born. So I grew up with grandmothers who, if they were alive today would be well over a hundred Wellover and aunts, and great-aunts with postgraduate degrees from Western universities.
And my mother was not only a teacher. She was also a teacher of teachers. You're talking about the turn of the last century of the 20th century, when illiteracy in Sudan for women would have been, complete and also illiteracy generally in the country was extremely high. The vast majority of people would have been illiterate.
So for me to say that I grew up with these very powerful. Women as symbols of female empowerment are because my great grandfather was so visionary and set up schools. He set up his first school in the courtyard of his own home. And as an example, put his own daughters. He had a lot of children in this school and despite opposition from many quarters, he persisted.
And to this day, my family, my uncle runs a women's university in the capital of Sudan. That is why we call women's education, the family business.
Mungi: I love that. And then I'd love to know who are the people who have inspired.
Zeinab: That question is really, related to my answer about the fact that my great grandfather was the pioneer of women's education.
I would say that he has had a very quiet, I never met him. He died quite a few years before I was born. Although he lived to the ripe old age of 96, I would say that. And the manifestations of what he did. I E my grandmothers, my great aunts, my aunts, and my own mother are collective. The people who have inspired me the most, he, because he was a visionary and because he was somebody who swam against the tide and had the courage of his own convictions was brave, was iconoclastic.
And I think that people who achieve great things are often people who are full of courage. And so I suppose that's been a touchstone for me throughout my life.
Mungi: We are all about family on this podcast. So that's always heartwarming. What would you say is your greatest fear for humanity?
Zeinab: Oh gosh. I have many fears for humanity, but
I difficult to, say, oh, I believe in world peace, or I believe in the climate, stopping poverty, world hunger. And so I suppose collectively what I would say is that I'm a seeker of harmony and I think harmony produces good things. And therefore I think the avoidance of conflict and is very important.
Conflict is my greatest fear for humanity conflict in all its manifestations. Be it a conflict between people in countries. Be it a conflict between countries bit conflict between people and nature conflict. Which means you have unequal access to resources. So you have some people who are extremely rich and have more than they need a surfeit.
Whereas for many there's a deficit, inequalities and I would say yes, a very broad definition of conflict. Getting worse would be my greatest fear for humanity. As
Mungi: someone who studied conflict resolution, I'm here to help.
Zeinab: Okay. Yes. That's very, it's very important because you can't achieve anything with turbulence and conflict.
And as I say, you don't need conflicts within households, which gives rise to domestic abuse and so on. So I think that's, yes, my greatest fear is however you want to define conflict wherever you can identify it. Let's not see it, increase in multiply.
Mungi: And then what would you say is your greatest hope for humanity?
My
Zeinab: My greatest hope for humanity would be related to my greatest fear for humanity, which is seeing greater conflict. So the avoidance of conflict in all its forms is what I would really hope and aspire to. And a world without want is very important. I've traveled all over the world and I've seen people who really have next to nothing.
And this is insupportable. We cannot tolerate this state of affairs where even people's basic needs are not met. And I think that a world that is free of want and a world at peace with itself in harmony, as I said, with nature pit between peoples. So yeah, it's a very kind of utopia type of view, hey, why not think big, think small. Yeah. You don't think anywhere if you think small. Yeah, you have to push
Mungi: people. So I support well Zainab Badawi thank you so much for coming on the Everyday Ubuntu podcasts.
Zeinab: It's been my pleasure to talk to you. Mungi thank you so much, indeed. And thank you for your very thoughtful questions.
I've enjoyed talking to you. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Mungi: I hope you enjoyed this conversation today and don't forget to hit subscribe and give the show a rating and review wherever you enjoy your podcast. Follow me at Mungi dot on Instagram. I'd love to hear from you and get your feedback on the show. I'll be back in a week with a new episode. Thank you for listening to Everyday Ubuntu.