Party and class: Zephaniah on the new years honours

[Jurriaan Bendien <bendien@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

'Me? I thought, OBE me? Up yours, I thought'

An invitation to the palace to accept an New Year honour... you must be
joking. Benjamin Zephaniah won't be going. Here he explains why

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.

Total story:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/poetry/features/0,12887,1094009,00.html

      There's a guardian angel watching over you, yeah
      Better mind your ways...just might leave on you
      In the darkness who else is really with you?
      Only you alone
      Got to live with you all the time
      When there's no more time
      And nothin' left to do
      Who will hear you?
      Who will hear your heart?
      Your guardian angel
      Who are these kindred spirits?
      Would you know them if they stood in front of you?
      From below the loneliness eats at you
      Try the telephone
      Someone might listen for a while
      When there's no more time
      And nothin' left to do
      Who will hear you?
      Who will hear your heart?
      Your guardian angel
      When a passing stranger looks away from you
      An uneasy feelin' starts comin' over you
      There's somebody watching somewhere
      Maybe today it's you
      Comes a desperate urge to run
      Guardian angel where are you?
      When there's no more time
      And nothin' left to do
      Who will hear you?
      Who will hear your heart?
      Your guardian angel

      - Young Neil, Guardian Angel