----- Original Message -----
From: "Amadu Kabir Njie" <[log in to unmask]>Greetings,
Yes, I agree with Benjamin "The Order of the British Empire is Out of Order.
Jah knows its time for Africans to be back paid for 400 years of free labor.
Reparations is not charity money. Reparations is our entitlement. With Blair
and Queen in Nigeria trying to crack the whip in Nigeria. It's time for us
to see, how far our leaders have come!
Will they submit to cohersion and sacrifice Mugabe, and continue the
perpetuation of the under- development of Africa. Or shall they stand firm
with courage to manifest mental liberation, cutting through the illusion
that west knows best. It is now time for Africans to take care of our own
business, to use our own resources for our own interests. As our ancestors
have demonstrated what they achieved, without interference from the West.
Highlighting to us our capabilities of building Africa to stand once again
in it rightful place. There is no justification why foreigners should own a
hosts land. While the host lives as a squatters. The portrayal of the
idyllic white farmer in the British Country-side is the spin being spun in
the sin bin.
But in reality those white farmers whip they're workers, paying them
indentured wages, these farmers are the last bastions of the plantocracy of
white supermacy. So I shut my ears to them trying to scapegoat Mugabe. For
its their strategy to use divide and rule to blind we. Mek dem go long.
Because after 400 years we need to chant a new song, and to work while we're
singing it.
Peace
Sophia Ba
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, December 05, 2003 6:02 AM
Subject: Fw: 'Me? I thought, OBE me? Up yours, I thought'
'Me? I thought, OBE me? Up yours, I thought'
An invitation to the palace to accept a New Year honour... you must be
joking. Benjamin Zephaniah won't be going. Here he explains why
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4806228-103680,00.html
Benjamin Zephaniah
Thursday November 27, 2003
The Guardian
I woke up on the morning of November 13 wondering how the government could
be overthrown and what could replace it, and then I noticed a letter from
the prime minister's office. It said: "The prime minister has asked me to
inform you, in strict confidence, that he has in mind, on the occasion of
the forthcoming list of New Year's honours to submit your name to the Queen
with a recommendation that Her Majesty may be graciously pleased to approve
that you be appointed an officer of the Order of the British Empire."
Me? I thought, OBE me? Up yours, I thought. I get angry when I hear that
word "empire"; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds of thousands of years of
brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers
brutalised. It is because of this concept of empire that my British
education led me to believe that the history of black people started with
slavery and that we were born slaves, and should therefore be grateful that
we were given freedom by our caring white masters. It is because of this
idea of empire that black people like myself don't even know our true names
or our true historical culture. I am not one of those who are obsessed with
their roots, and I'm certainly not suffering from a crisis of identity; my
obsession is about the future and the political rights of all people.
Benjamin Zephaniah OBE - no way Mr Blair, no way Mrs Queen. I am profoundly
anti-empire.
There's something very strange about receiving a letter from Tony Blair's
office asking me if I want to accept this award. In the past couple of
months I've been on Blair's doorstep a few times. I have begged him to come
out and meet me; I have been longing for a conversation with him, but he
won't come out, and now here he is asking me to meet him at the palace! I
was there with a million people on February 15, and the last time I was
there was just a couple of weeks ago. My cousin, Michael Powell, was
arrested and taken to Thornhill Road police station in Birmingham where he
died. Now, I know how he died. The whole of Birmingham knows how he died,
but in order to get this article published and to be politically (or
journalistically) correct, I have to say that he died in suspicious
circumstances. The police will not give us any answers. We have not seen or
heard anything of all the reports and investigations we were told were going
to take place. Now, all that my family can do is join with all the other
families who have lost members while in custody because no one in power is
listening to us. Come on Mr Blair, I'll meet you anytime. Let's talk about
your Home Office, let's talk about being tough on crime.
This OBE thing is supposed to be for my services to literature, but there
are a whole lot of writers who are better than me, and they're not involved
in the things that I'm involved in. All they do is write; I spend most of my
time doing other things. If they want to give me one of these empire things,
why can't they give me one for my work in animal rights? Why can't they give
me one for my struggle against racism? What about giving me one for all the
letters I write to innocent people in prisons who have been framed? I may
just consider accepting some kind of award for my services on behalf of the
millions of people who have stood up against the war in Iraq. It's such hard
work - much harder than writing poems.
And hey, if Her Majesty may be graciously pleased to lay all that empire
stuff on me, why can't she write to me herself. Let's cut out the
middleman - she knows me. The last time we met, it was at a concert I was
hosting. She came backstage to meet me. That didn't bother me; lots of
people visit my dressing room after performances. Me and the South African
performers I was working with that night thought it rather funny that we had
a royal groupie. She's a bit stiff but she's a nice old lady. Let me make it
clear: I have nothing against her or the royal family. It is the institution
of the monarchy that I loathe so very much, the monarchy that still refuses
to apologise for sanctioning slavery.
There is a part of me that hopes that after writing this article I shall
never be considered as a Poet Laureate or an OBE sucker again. Let this put
an end to it. This may lose me some of my writing friends; some people may
never want to work with me again, but the truth is I think OBEs compromise
writers and poets, and laureates suddenly go soft - in the past I've even
written a poem, Bought and Sold, saying that.
There are many black writers who love OBEs, it makes them feel like they
have made it. When it suits them, they embrace the struggle against the
ruling class and the oppression they visit upon us, but then they join the
oppressors' club. They are so easily seduced into the great house of Babylon
known as the palace. For them, a wonderful time is meeting the Queen and
bowing before her presence.
I was shocked to see how many of my fellow writers jumped at the opportunity
to go to Buckingham Palace when the Queen had her "meet the writers day" on
July 9 2002, and I laughed at the pathetic excuses writers gave for going.
"I did it for my mum"; "I did it for my kids"; "I did it for the school"; "I
did it for the people", etc. I have even heard black writers who have
collected OBEs saying that it is "symbolic of how far we have come". Oh yes,
I say, we've struggled so hard just to get a minute with the Queen and we
are so very grateful - not.
I've never heard of a holder of the OBE openly criticising the monarchy.
They are officially friends, and that's what this cool Britannia project is
about. It gives OBEs to cool rock stars, successful businesswomen and blacks
who would be militant in order to give the impression that it is inclusive.
Then these rock stars, successful women, and ex-militants write to me with
the OBE after their name as if I should be impressed. I'm not. Quite the
opposite - you've been had.
Writers and artists who see themselves as working outside the establishment
are constantly being accused of selling out as soon as they have any kind of
success. I've been called a sell-out for selling too many books, for writing
books for children, for performing at the Royal Albert Hall, for going on
Desert Island Discs, and for appearing on the Parkinson show. But I want to
reach as many people as possible without compromising the content of my
work.
What continues to be my biggest deal with the establishment must be my work
with the British Council, of which, ironically, the Queen is patron. I have
no problem with this. It has never told me what to say, or what not to say.
I have always been free to criticise the government and even the council
itself. This is what being a poet is about. Most importantly, through my
work with the council I am able to show the world what Britain is really
about in terms of our arts, and I am able to partake in the type of
political and cultural intercourse which is not possible in the mainstream
political arena. I have no problem representing the reality of our
multiculturalism, which may sometimes mean speaking about the way my cousin
Michael died in a police station. But then, I am also at ease letting people
know that our music scene is more than what they hear in the charts, and
that British poetry is more than Wordsworth, or even Motion. I have no
problem with all of this because this is about us and what we do. It is
about what happens on the streets of our country and not in the palace or at
No 10.
Me, OBE? Whoever is behind this offer can never have read any of my work.
Why don't they just give me some of those great African works of art that
were taken in the name of the empire and let me return them to their
rightful place? You can't fool me, Mr Blair. You want to privatise us all;
you want to send us to war. You stay silent when we need you to speak for
us, preferring to be the voice of the US. You have lied to us, and you
continue to lie to us, and you have poured the working-class dream of a
fair, compassionate, caring society down the dirty drain of empire. Stick
it, Mr Blair - and Mrs Queen, stop going on about the empire. Let's do
something else.
Bought and Sold
Smart big awards and prize money
Is killing off black poetry
It's not censors or dictators that are cutting up our art.
The lure of meeting royalty
And touching high society
Is damping creativity and eating at our heart.
The ancestors would turn in graves
Those poor black folk that once were slaves would wonder
How our souls were sold
And check our strategies,
The empire strikes back and waves
Tamed warriors bow on parades
When they have done what they've been told
They get their OBEs.
Don't take my word, go check the verse
Cause every laureate gets worse
A family that you cannot fault as muse will mess your mind,
And yeah, you may fatten your purse
And surely they will check you first when subjects need to be amused
With paid for prose and rhymes.
Take your prize, now write more,
Faster,
Fuck the truth
Now you're an actor do not fault your benefactor
Write, publish and review,
You look like a dreadlocks Rasta,
You look like a ghetto blaster,
But you can't diss your paymaster
And bite the hand that feeds you.
What happened to the verse of fire
Cursing cool the empire
What happened to the soul rebel that Marley had in mind,
This bloodstained, stolen empire rewards you and you conspire,
(Yes Marley said that time will tell)
Now look they've gone and joined.
We keep getting this beating
It's bad history repeating
It reminds me of those capitalists that say
'Look you have a choice,'
It's sick and self-defeating if our dispossessed keep weeping
And we give these awards meaning
But we end up with no voice.
· Taken from Too Black, Too Strong. Published by Bloodaxe Books (2001)
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