#146 What is Sovereign Media? - Ahmed Kaballo

Speaker 1: As far as I'm concerned, as long as that same respect and recognition is not shown toward every one of our people in this country, it doesn't exist for me. And during the few moments that we have left, we want to have just an off-the-cuff chat. between you and me, us. We wanna talk right down to earth in a language that everybody here can easily understand.

Speaker 2: Welcome back to another episode of The Malcolm Effect and joining me is my brother, comrade, friend, someone whose work I implore all of my listeners to tap into because truly when we speak about platforms, alternative media spaces, sovereign media and the work of Ahmed Kabelo is at the forefront. So welcome to the Malcolm Effect, my bro, Ahmed Kabela, who is the founder and director of Sovereign Media. Salaam and welcome, bro.

Ahmed Kaballo: Walaikum Assalam, my brother. Pleasure to be on your platform. Big fan of your work and even bigger fan now that I know you're an African from Birmingham like me.

Speaker 2: That's another thing that we share and some of the conversations will remain offline. But I first came across you through the work of Africa Stream. We can talk, I'm sure we're going to get more into that throughout this discussion. But for people who may not be aware, what is sovereign media and how did it come to be?

Ahmed Kaballo: Sure. So Sovereign Media is a coalition of anti-imperialist media networks. And the original aim was to offer support, training and show them basically how to make media content that's digestible for the social media age. Some of the media platforms that we work with are brilliant, but most of them have experience, or some of them have experience primarily with websites and the written form. So just helping that transformation, but also under the banner that we're stronger together than we are divided. And because of what happened at African Stream, which I'm sure we'll get at a later point, When that happened to African stream, we felt very isolated. So the idea is that through being in a coalition where we have a stronger defense against such unfounded attacks by the imperialist powers, when you start to threaten their control and monopoly on the narrative, But sovereign media is its own media entity on its own. So the idea was initially to be a coalition, but then we realised beyond just being a coalition, we wanted to be a media platform on its own, right? So we started creating anti-imperialist content very much in the same format of African Stream, which is primarily short, based, digestible and easily understandable for people that might not be familiar with the topics at hand.

Speaker 2: And I appreciate that response because I actually even further the name, right? And we think of what's in the name Shakespeare. I think it's so important we center questions of sovereignty in media because oftentimes, you know, right now, you know, as Africans, Africans and people, we're big up in the entertainment industry. We're big up in different various industries as in sports, et cetera, right? And again, there's level exploitation that occurs because why it's not connected to the question of sovereignty. No one's against cultural production in these questions. We love cultural production and we know it's necessary. many other anti-colonial thinkers but a question of cultural production on media and communications should always be attached to a sovereign project should always be attached to owning the means of production we see that with Sekou Touré Guinea became the hub for African film in this time in the 80s and 70s right and Senegal etc so and that's why I really like the name of sovereign media of what it kind of implies in the name itself, right? That given the imperial onslaught against media organizations, we are reasserting ourselves in a particular way to challenge hegemonic narratives. And I think, once again, sovereign media is at the forefront of it. So I really appreciate that. Going back to, we can go a bit offensive telling you about the coalition, but I guess I'm interested in the transition from Africa stream to sovereign media. How did that take place?

Ahmed Kaballo: Sure. So the foundation that funds sovereign media and provided some funding to African Stream is the Babushki Foundation. And they're a group of principled anti-imperialist Marxists, primarily based in the US, but not exclusively based in the US. And they, you know, once they gave us some funding for African Stream, and then once the attacks by The then Secretary of State Antony Blinken happened on Friday the 13th of September 2024, a day that I'll never forget. They reached out and they were like, you know, we're sorry this has happened to you. You've got our unconditional support. And then they told me that they were coming to the Communist Party, Marxist Kenya, annual congress that happened, I believe, that same year, December that same year. And would I be happy to meet up? So I met up with them and then they proposed this idea of sovereign media. There's so many skills that have been gained at African Stream. We had a very unique style. would I be open to opening up some sort of training facility for different members that they support? And then that would form part of a coalition where we would collectively make content together. So I was like, yeah, for sure. So the original idea was, was that African Stream would be part of this coalition. So sovereign media was never meant to replace African Stream. African Stream was meant to be part of the coalition. But because of the nature of the attacks, it became very difficult to run a media business under the name of African Stream, where, you know, whenever someone searched that name, there's these unfounded... smears against us and a Wikipedia page that every time it's edited by one of our supporters is re-edited by someone from I'm pretty sure a free letter agency based in the US so it just meant that that continuing African Stream was just impossible. And, you know, African Stream, we paid our staff. It wasn't volunteer-ran. And, of course, we could have switched to a volunteer approach, but the quality of our work meant that people were on this every day, five days a week, 52 weeks in a year. And to go from that to volunteers that could, you know, when they've got time, in the midst of a capitalist system where people are trying to make a living, just meant that people... I wasn't prepared to read those comments of, oh, African streamers fell off. It's not what it used to be. This used to be the place. Yeah, and I just wasn't prepared. You know, oh... I wasn't prepared. I wanted to get off the stage with African Stream while the fans were still cheering our name as opposed to Death by a Thousand Cuts. So we decided to close African Stream down. Also as a, you know, as a big FU to the establishment because We provided a service that people relied on for African news. And everyone knows the reason why we are no longer there is because the US State Department, in the midst of everything that's going on, decided to shut down a little platform of 20 or 30-year-olds based in Nairobi, Kenya. Do you know what I'm saying? So I wanted that message to be felt. What is it about Africans telling their own stories that was such a threat to the U.S. State Department. And what does it mean? And if they can do that to us, then they can do it to you. But also it means that you should pick up the microphone, you should pick up your phone, your video phone, and start telling your own stories, because there's obviously something powerful in that endeavor. Otherwise, they wouldn't have. Just to give people context, in the midst of a genocide, where most of the White House's press secretary briefings are done by that annoying White House press secretary that smirks at every question, Antony Blinken steps in to give a statement. yeah so every all these journalists rushed in like oh if anthony blinken's given a statement then it must be big news obviously relating to gaza which was a big story at the time and in the midst of that context he decided to read out our website and he quoted and said on their website it says giving a voice to africans both at home and abroad but in reality they only give a voice to to kremlin propagandists he said that at a press conference which is just nuts. It's nuts. It's the most surreal thing to happen to me in my life, yeah? It still doesn't feel... Bro, but if I tell you how I found out, like, I'm going to a retrained wedding, going to a retrained wedding, ironing my trousers, yeah? And one of my friends is a journalist for the mainstream media, so he was watching the press conference live, and he sent me the link, and he goes... He goes, bro, be careful you don't get sanctioned. And I was like, what? I said to him, is this AI? Is this some sort of AI joke, bro? Because it's not funny. And he goes, I wouldn't play with you like that. And I was just like, whoa, this is like a real thing. Do you know what I'm saying? I guess you probably went through a similar situation when you were hunted down. Where you're like, is this? You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 2: Even just like. it doesn't actually feel real but i'm not gonna go too much what happened but everyone knows but like again it does not feel real like i just watched a year ago these people were coming from me but no but i think honestly though bro what that says though like i'm glad first and foremost you remained undeterred right if anything you're trying to that they try to intimidate you, right? They try to like, you know, materially deprive you of being able to fulfill and carry out the work that's being done. And again, that's for me, you should see that as a compliment. right you see that as a compliment see as like these are the people who you are challenging their power and they feel so threatened by you that they had to take these draconian measures to for all the speech of all the talk and clamor of freedom of speech in first amendment they took it upon themselves to bring you down so honestly i say as a compliment and just like a credit to you actually on the right side of history and in the words of castro fidel And he says that, you know, we are constantly engaged in a battle of ideas. And this is our role as well. So I guess speaking of more about like sovereign media and you kind of detail what it is, what it does. So speak to me more about like, what is the purpose of sovereign media? What do you hope to achieve with it?

Ahmed Kaballo: Sure. So the clues in the name, in a sense of sovereignty, what is sovereignty and what is sovereignty in the media space? It's the idea of who gets to tell the story. Yes. So we a quick example I'll give you when the revolutionary coup happened in Niger. We had people in the ground in Miami telling us how excited people were and why they were excited. Yeah. But then CNN had this like panel. Not a single African was talking about it. They had someone from a think tank that used to work for the U.S. State Department that said she spent some time in the army a couple of years ago. and ludicrously claimed that Naomi, which is at the time of the coup, Niger was the second poorest country in the world, said it's full of political elites. And what you'll find is the political elites were the ones that were filling the streets. I mean, it's so devoid of... of reality, of sentiment on the ground, of any real understanding of the context. And that's because they didn't have anyone from the Sahel. They didn't have anyone from Niger that could say what they wanted to say. So they got some white lady from a think tank that used to work for the US State Department. And that is the antithesis of sovereignty, of narrative. So we never want to be like that. We never want to have... people that have no connection to the story, talking about stories in parts of the world where, one, they've probably never visited. Two, if they have visited, they stayed in a five-star hotel and did lives from the roof. Yeah. And they got, you know, a fixer that is usually opposition aligned, whose parents would have lost materially because, you know, they were part of the comprador class of that nation that are now maybe, you know, not making as much money that the oil has been nationalized, not making as much more money after the mining deals have been renegotiated and nationalized. And so therefore very angry against them. You know, the Fidel Castro's, the Islamic Revolution, the Nicolas Maduro government, the Hugo Chavez, etc. You know, we think that is like the antithesis of how media should be, but it has sadly become the norm. Or we've got this other situation, which is like parachute journalist, someone that lives in London or Brussels or Paris, Washington, 52 weeks in a year. And then for two weeks, we'll fly into a place and pretend like they're an expert on said place. We had a recent example with Sky News doing a hit piece job on Ibrahim Choure after spending about, what, six days in the country. But yeah... coming with these big conclusions about the revolution, about the revolutionary process and about Ibrahim Chouri himself. Again, completely devoid of the sentiment on the ground. So sovereign media refuses to be like that. And you've got journalists in Iran, in Caracas, in Ouagadougou, you know, journalists that if they're not in Sudan, have lived in Sudan, have lived in the places that are constantly represented in the media, but badly misrepresented in the media, in the mainstream media.

Speaker 2: No, I appreciate that response. And again, once again, given the time we're in, it's so important because you cannot go on social media and not be bombarded with misinformation, right? So like this kind of journalistic integrity it takes to actually be with people on the ground And again, having a specific take that understands the complexities of sovereign reclamation projects, right? So again, I appreciate that. So let's speak about timelines. How long did this take to put together? Like what was the timeline and what hurdles did you experience?

Ahmed Kaballo: Sure. So it didn't take too long. I think we started work officially. I was having my second baby and my first baby was born during the launch of African Stream. So I didn't take the paternity leave that I should have. My wife never let me forget it. So I told them, I told them, second baby, I'm just going to need a little time to give my wife support, especially because first baby was born in the UK, second baby was born in Kenya. So there's obviously more support in the UK because both families are in the UK, less support in Kenya. So my wife needed that support. So we started work. In June, we launched in October. Obstacles that we faced. I'm half wondering whether I should say this or I shouldn't. Just movement of money. Let's just put it that way. Yeah. Movement of money. Yeah. Movement of money. Especially when you're like trying to set up business accounts and they go, what is, what is, and you're like, oh, we're an anti-imperialist. Could you break?

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Ahmed Kaballo: we'll leave it there because i don't want to encourage the facilities that we do have that has been the big that that that's been the biggest obstacle and the next biggest obstacle is we've got like a journalist in palestine like i said we've got a journalist in tehran this is it shouldn't be a problem but Paying these people, not paying them, as in sending the money so they can receive it, is far from easy. Far from easy. So, yeah, that's been the biggest obstacle so far.

Speaker 2: Oh, we're going to be, I fully relate to that. Someone has dealt with things like Vox Homma. I know there's similar patterns, right? So, but yeah, thanks for telling me. Um, and I guess people will be wondering, how did you select the media coalition partners? Like what were you looking for? What politically, what was the criteria?

Ahmed Kaballo: Okay. So there was a core group already. Uh, and I believe they already had a relationship with Babushki foundation. Um, But I had no objections to that group. All of the group that were part of the initial core were anti-imperialist media that I was already reading, already following, already knew some of their members, etc., etc., There's been a few additions. Sobrinia Media was added after the launch. Fox Oma was added after the launch or soon, either after the launch or soon just before we launched. Black Alliance for Peace, which is a movement, has joined us after the launch. But the criteria is truth-seeking media. research-reliant anti-imperialist media. And that's the thing. All media is ideological, despite their best attempts at the BBC and others to tell you that they're just objective. All media is ideological. And we're ideological as well, and we don't shy away from our ideology. So, of course, there had to be some ideological alignment. And the principle of ideological alignment is, you know, anti-imperialist, Marxist media that understand that the current system that the world is organized in is basically designed for the few, not for the many. And it will never lead to a situation where global South will ever see true prosperity. Yeah. It's, you know, a trillion, a trillion dollars of our mining wealth in Africa is owned or, or, or partially owned by British companies. Yeah. A lot of these communities around the mines are dirt poor. The water is, It's polluted. People are paid a pittance for their labor. And this isn't an accident. This is by design. And none of that will change until we revolutionize the ways that our economies are set up. And unless we confront these imperialist powers that seek to extract our resources at the expense of the people. So we're looking for media that tries to tell stories through that lens. Now, I'll give you an example. Obviously, I'm moving around in Kenya, and then you meet people, you meet people, Mzungus, a lot of European people that you meet, and they go, oh, cool, is that a British accent? Are you from the UK? Yeah, okay, what are you doing in Kenya? Oh, I came to set up a media company. What's it called? African Stream. Oh, cool. What's the remit? I was like, we focus primarily on the African content. I was like, oh, so you guys mainly focus on corruption, corruption and stuff like that. I was like, no, not really. We mostly focus on imperialism and neocolonialism. And so that is the prevailing narrative. That we are in a mess that we are in because Africa has a unique problem that's specific to our continent only of corruption. And this unique problem means that we can never prosper and we can never, ever be a power within this global system. And we refute that. Obviously, corruption is part of the story. But we talk about corruption from the perspective of middle management, yeah? That corruption is only one part of the story and that there's a much larger scheme of extractive policies that means that if you didn't have corrupted, bribe-able officials, then the scheme wouldn't work. And we've seen time and time again, we've seen time and time again that leaders that try to take a different path, that try to reject IMF, that try to break the shackles of neocolonialism are either killed, cooed, or widely, and we'll plug your PhD here, are widely discredited by the mainstream media like Ahmed Sekei Torre. One of my comments from Bikini Faso actually said that, because I did ask, you know, with all of this reporting on Ibrahim Torre, I go, you know, what was... What's it like on the ground? Is it, you know, as they describe? And she goes, it's obviously not as bad as they describe, but there are certain policies that are taken against counter-revolutionary elements, because if there wasn't, the revolution wouldn't survive, yeah? And the only revolution that managed to survive... in Africa, against the coups, against the assassination attempts, was Ahmed Sekei Touré in Guinea. And to do that, there were policies taken that many, from a modern lens, would describe as authoritarian. So what do you want? A free society where journalists paid by CIA fronts can widely discredit your revolution, where people are paid to go on strike to discredit your revolution. That can just go unabated. Or would you rather the government take some measures to protect the revolution? And that's exactly what Ibrahim Toure is doing. And that's what Ahmed Seke Toure did before him.

Speaker 2: No, bro, thank you so much. You make two amazing points. And I think bringing in Bukina Faso brings this into sharp relief. What do I mean by that? Sankara... who everyone celebrates, and rightfully so, one of the greatest anti-imperialist Africans or human beings in the 20th century.

Ahmed Kaballo: Who my second son is named after, just to jump in. My second son is named after.

Speaker 2: And he was told that Blaise Kampora was plotting against him, right? and I paraphrase, if I follow this down, follow this road, paranoia may consume, right? And again, West celebrates and look how he got taken out. I've noticed something, I did a post the other day about Western Marxists, right? The inability to recognize African sovereign projects. It's either they either love you because you're assassinated and you die, right? Or you're a victim and then they can help you. But when you are King John Un, or when you're someone, when you're Islamic Republic, who says, you know what? We are going to protect this revolution by any means necessary. That's when you're called authoritarian, dictatorial, et cetera. I've heard this in Western academic circles around Sepulchre, around Nkrumah, around all these other pan-Africanist leaders who were attempting sovereign development projects. And secondly, I will say on this point of like, my PhD focuses on international political economy and also international relations. And the stuff I'm reading right now is the literature that emerges in the 70s and 80s around the discourses of state failure in Africa. where you have all these liberals who are trying to write about Africa. And honestly, these are the liberals, I'm not surprised, but some of the most racist white supremacist material you'll read about Africa comes from liberals who speak about all this. There's a guy called John Francis Bayard. He has a book speaking about West African state formation. The book is called Politics of the Belly. And this is a critically acclaimed, celebrated book. in international relations, right? And so they say things like, oh, the kind of synopsis of a lot of their argument, we gave Africans independence way too quick and didn't have the knowledge capacity or institutional capacity to actually move. the type of state that was bequeathed to African leaders is the type of when Secretary says no when Guinea says no in 58 immediately what happens you have a French withdrawal and they take so much money and resources away from Guinea to the point Kwame Nkrumah comes and gives Guinea a 10 million dollar grant right so I'm just saying like the story of like when you get on the ground of corruption You cannot speak about corruption without naming the system that allows and not allow that requires it to work. Because what happened with Mobutu Sissoko? Where was his money? His money was held in Switzerland. His money was held in Switzerland. Capital flight. Exactly. If you read the last 10 pages of Wretched of the Earth in the chapter on violence in the international context, it's exactly what Fanon says. Okay, you can have your independence and stuff. That's what was offered to Africans. So once again, I appreciate, like, again, having a media platform that understands this complexity and does it in a way that actually honors Africans. And that's what I see the role of sovereign media doing.

Ahmed Kaballo: So my next question. Let me just jump in back to that. And the thing that a lot of the analysis is ahistorical. So between 1939 and 1945 in the UK, there was no elections because the Nazi threat was so real. There was a stamping down on press freedoms because they were like, OK, we can't have newspapers openly advocating the position of the Nazis. Yet in Burkina Faso, where they say some reports say 40% of the country is under terrorist control, You expect civil service and journalists and French-aligned media to just report freely, often quoting and interviewing some of these terrorist leaders and leaders of these rebel groups. You expect that to go unabated. And when it doesn't, and when Ibrahim Chora in the revolutionary process says no, you write a dozen articles about them being authoritarian. And I saw the tweet that you put up about Western Marxists. I think it was in response to the Jacobin magazine. The irony of the Jacobin magazine's piece is it was using Thomas Sankara to discredit Ibrahim Chora as if... Thomas Sankara was alive today, embarking on the same journey. They wouldn't have a similar article trying to discredit Thomas Sankara, who came through in a coup, who came through in a revolutionary coup, who had some of the same criticisms of him at the time that Ibrahim Chouré has of him now. So it's hilarious. And we see this time and time again. When they can't discredit the revolution, they go to another angle, which is... This isn't the real revolution that was before. So we saw it in Venezuela. The biggest criticism that they tried to come from the right was Nicolas Maduro is no Hugo Chavez. And I'm like, you guys are nuts. When Hugo Chavez was alive, you just criticized him. And not only was he vice president, but you constantly said this is a Cuban puppet. He's trying to steal the resources. And now he's gone. And you can't argue the record of the social programs and how many people were lifted out of poverty. It's now Nicolas Maduro is no longer Hugo Chavez. So, yeah, it is fascinating. And the disconnect between these Western Marxists and global South Marxists. My dad, who is Central Committee member of the Sydney Communist Party, said it was the same when he was, you know, in student politics, the exact same thing. So, you know, his argument to me was we're wasting our breath if we think that it's going to change because the material conditions underground are completely different. Revolution for us is literally, if you're living in the African continent, or at least have family that are permanently living in the African continent, can mean life and death. My family have all gone into exile because of the war in Sudan. We've lost family members because of the war in Sudan. It's not abstract. It's real. It's a real discourse that has real meaning on the ground. Unfortunately, for a lot of Western Marxists, it's not real. The conversation remains in the abstract. It remains in the peer-reviewed articles. And then, you know... And this is why, you know, their parties don't seem to get off the ground in the same way. Because, again, it's not real. We have... There's this constant discussion about why is the right always united and the left disunited? And my argument is, on the right, they're all part of the same class. So they're defending their collective class interests. On the left, in places like the UK, we have people advocating class interests on behalf of a class that they don't belong to. So of course there's always going to be these divisions because there's not a unified class interest. There's different theories of abstraction that people are trying to put forward.

Speaker 2: Absolutely. I think that was an important intervention and a response, actually. And yeah, ban Jacobin, right? I'm sorry. Let me not give you that. This is not Ahmed. That doesn't affect Ahmed's position, okay? That's my position.

Ahmed Kaballo: No, no. That's my position as well. Ban them. Ban them.

Speaker 2: But, okay, so I guess we can have more of a conversation anyway. And I think, honestly, bro, even though it's just about sovereign media and I'm saying it publicly, I'd love to have another conversation with you just to chat about the stuff you're doing in Africa in general, actually, which is something I'm obviously also invested in. But for a final question for the actual interview section, 50 years from now, you're looking back, what do you want people to say sovereign media is or was or will be?

Ahmed Kaballo: Great question. I'd like them to say that they were a people grounded anti-imperialist media network that were connected to different movements all over the world. that they were very generous in sharing their skills and their resources to social movements, anti-imperialist media all over the world, and that hopefully in 50 years' time that we're not deplatformed, that we're not we're not taking off like African Stream is, but if we are, much like what happened to African Stream, that many more different types of sovereign media will follow, that we were the spark that created... The kind of types of media that we're seeing in, what year is it, in 2050, 50 years from now will be 2076. The type of media that we see all over the place in 2076, Southern media was one of the first. But even after, God forbid that we're not taken down, but even after, if they were taken down, many more followed.

Speaker 2: And finally, finally, just I guess a practical technical question for folks. Is there room for more coalition partners or what does that process look like if so?

Ahmed Kaballo: Definitely, definitely. Yeah, constantly rooting for more coalition partners, as long as they're on the right line. Of course, there's places in the world that we haven't, we've got some representation, but we'd like more representation. I'd say maybe Southeast Asia, for example, we'd love to have a coalition partner that can help and analyse what's going on in that part of the world. We probably have a little bit of lack of representation in Europe itself because there are some progressive movements and media outlets doing some impressive work. We probably like to be a bit more connected to them. So, of course, there's always room. There's always room for this to grow. And we want this to be, you know, a truly international movement. coalition that people can go to as a trustworthy source of news? What is the anti-imperialist position to the various crises that we find ourselves in?

Speaker 2: Amazing, amazing. So again, guys, please tap into the amazing work Sovereign Media is doing. I'll post links to the episode description below. Until next time, people. This is not going to be the last time you hear Ahmed Kabbalah on my show, because I think given that the focus of this show particularly was Sovereign Media, as we can say, we're both principled, anti-imperialist, pan-Africanist, and I think we can have so much more amazing discussions going forward as well. So I'm publicly inviting you for a part two at some point, Ahmed. Hope you will accept. And hopefully we'll have a conversation again soon. Take good care.

Ahmed Kaballo: Inshallah, bro. Inshallah, man. I'd love to invite you again on Sovereign Media. Hopefully in not as depressing circumstances as the last interview.

Speaker 2: In better circumstances. Until next time, everyone. Peace.