Profoundly Anti-Empire

In life, the legendary dub poet and writer was an increasingly rare public figure who eschewed imperialist ‘honours’ in line with his anti-imperialist and anti-colonial worldview. He most famously rejected an OBE in 2003, with his letter of rejection today standing as a scathing indictment of the British honours system:

‘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.’

Zephaniah’s rejection of an OBE was met with bewilderment by the establishment and prompted a vitriolic response. Model minority Trevor Philips OBE published an eye-wateringly condescending article headlined ‘Get Real Ben, This Isn’t About Empire’ in the Evening Standard, chastising the rejection of an imperial honour:

‘So you sent back your OBE. Full marks for bravado. As dramatic gestures go, it’s not original but you did it with more flair and style than the usual self-righteous prigs who do this sort of thing.’

Phillips maintained that the honours had nothing to do with Empire, and closed with the laughable proposition that ‘the radical demand is not to refuse honours – it is to insist that as long as the system exists, we too receive our fair share of recognition.’ Zephaniah, a lifelong revolutionary and anti-imperialist, wanted nothing to do with such a system, and these views were shaped by an upbringing in a violently racist Britain.

From ‘Self Defence is No Offence’ to the Race Industry

Born in 1958 in Birmingham, Zephaniah’s poetry spoke for the unheard masses of Black people in Britain who were living in an uncompromising, racist society. In the aftermath of the fateful New Cross Massacre which killed 13 young Black people in a suspected racist arson attack, he released the song ‘13 Dead’, which became an anthem of rage against the failure of the authorities to catch the perpetrators:

‘We will not forget

We must not forget

Thirteen dead and nothing said

We will not forget.’

Growing up in mid 20th century Britain, Zephaniah grew to understand firsthand the violent nature of racism. In an account written in 2016, he describes one of his first experiences of a racist hate-crime:

‘A boy had hit me with a brick as he rode past on his bicycle. As I lay on the ground with blood pouring from the back of my head, he looked back and shouted: “Go home, you black bastard.” I had no idea what he was talking about. I was going home. Who was black? What was a bastard?’

Such an experience prompted an older Zephaniah to practice self defence once he moved from Birmingham to London. To fight against groups like the National Front, the slogan ‘Self-defence is no offence’ became popular. Groups like Red Action acted ‘like an alternative police force’ in his words, and protected gatherings from racist attacks. Zephaniah also encountered the Sari Squad, a renowned group of largely south-Asian women who deployed martial arts in the fight against racist hate organisations. In the absence of police who, at best played down fears of racist attacks or at worst, perpetrated such violence, it was up to racialised communities to defend themselves.

Zephaniah in particular was an avid campaigner against racist police brutality and stop-and-search laws. His ‘Stop and Search on Trial’ campaign was launched in 2014 in partnership with the Newham Monitoring project, of which he was a patron, and aimed to place police under both government and community scrutiny. He was also a Patron of INQUEST, a charity that provides support to families who have lost loved ones in state custody.

In contrast to those who fought and even died fighting racism on the streets, Zephaniah grew to lament what he termed the ‘Race Industry’ — supposed anti-racists that had become subsumed by the establishment that they were fighting against. In his poem, The Race Industry, Zephaniah made his disdain for such figures clear:

‘The coconuts have got the jobs.

The race industry is a growth industry.

We despairing, they careering.

We want more peace they want more police.

The Uncle Toms are getting paid.’

It is worth noting that this poem was included at the end of Zephaniah’s response to Trevor Phillips’ piece in the Evening Standard.

Rasta Time in Palestine

As Israel enters the third month of its brutal genocide in Palestine, it is all the more important that Zephaniah’s steadfast opposition to occupation and solidarity with Palestinians is highlighted. A patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), he recalled, ‘when I was young, there were two things that I really wanted to see; a free South Africa, and a free Palestine.’

In April 1988, Zephaniah visited Occupied Palestine to learn of the Palestinian struggle for liberation under Israeli apartheid. To document his journey, he compiled his experiences into the brief publication, Rasta Time in Palestine, published two years later. Open the book and you are greeted with a photo of a young Zephaniah, full of life, stood next to then-South African President, Nelson Mandela.

Witnessing the hyper-militarised, fascist and apartheid state in the flesh opened Zephaniah’s eyes to the settler-colonial nature of the occupation.

‘A Palestinian in Jordan told me to never call an Israeli a civilian. “They are all soldiers”, he insisted, this is something I learnt to understand. Israelis also made similar comments to me… It’s strange to see so many people in uniform… young couples kissing seated on walls, or in the daytime, women who are shopping with their children and a machine gun strapped to their backs – a very peculiar sight.’

While in Palestine, Zephaniah neatly summarised the nature of the occupation: ‘In Israel, there are some very well trained fighters with very powerful guns, who are very worried about some small children armed with stones.’ Interacting with Israelis was perhaps the most illuminating part of Zephaniah’s travels. While initial comparisons between South African apartheid and Zionism were drawn, the nakedly genocidal character of Zionism was revealed by Israeli soldiers themselves. Zephaniah remarked,

‘

‘I have always come to the conclusion that Zionism is apartheid. Judging by the ways in which some Zionists expressed their views to me, it is ‘openly’ worse… In Israel, to my horror on more than one occasion, I was told that apartheid was a nice idea, a bit of a dream maybe, and that they (Zionists) wanted to completely remove the Palestinian people from the face of the earth.’

As the indiscriminate bombing of schools, hospitals and homes in Gaza continues while the enclave remains blockaded, these haunting words written over three decades ago ring true today.

Although Zephaniah’s mere words were capable of painting pictures in the mind, the photographs taken by Jez Coulson dovetail perfectly with his prose, bringing fully to life the brutality of the occupation. One photo, captured in Ramallah, the West Bank, features a mother confronting an Israeli soldier, pleading for the release of her son who had been kidnapped. The soldier is extending his arm to block the camera — palm open — in the all too familiar gesture that says ‘no photos.’ Today it is estimated by Save the Children that between 500 and 1000 Palestinian children are kidnapped and held in Israeli jails each year, facing violence alongside psychological and sexual abuse. While the soldier in Coulson’s photo attempted a rudimentary form of censorship, today Israel’s blocking of telephone and internet services illustrates the persistence of these practices over time.  In another, a young girl is photographed playing alone, backgrounded by the cold, barbed wire topped walls that have come to symbolise the occupation. A particularly striking photograph features an abaya-clad Palestinian woman being approached and threatened by an Israeli soldier, truncheon brandished. Such photographs illustrate clearly the asymmetric struggle between a largely civilian population and a militarised ethnostate. It is difficult to not be moved to tears when witnessing a Palestinian child, no older than four, sitting barefoot in a squalid alleyway in Jabalia refugee camp, Gaza. Three decades later, Jabalia continues to be the site of Israeli atrocity – from October 9th the densely populated civilian quarters has been the target of repeated Israeli airstrikes which has lead to the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians, with an untold number trapped beneath the rubble today.

Zephaniah describes a harrowing incident at Al-Shifa hospital, where there were ‘two doctors who had to work for three days non-stop without being relieved.’ On talking to some of the patients and family present, he was told the story of a twelve year old Palestininan boy who ‘had been hit by a jeep driven by an Israeli woman, who then reversed back over his legs, and then drove forward over his legs a third time.’ Those familiar with Al-Shifa today know that it has been the site of Israeli shelling, with the hospital itself being raided by the occupation forces on Wednesday 15 November. Alongside other medical personnel, the director of Al-Shifa, Muhammad Abu Salmiya, was kidnapped by occupation forces and remains under detention. In a particularly heart-rending event prior to the raid, scores of Palestinian children just like the boy in Zephaniah’s account held a press conference at Al-Shifa in English for the world to hear: ‘Protect us, we want to live.’ At the time of writing, an estimated 7,000 children have been killed by Israel in Gaza.

One striking episode during Zephaniah’s visit featured a group of Israeli soldiers who ‘decided to pass a little time spitting at me.’ Despite this racist treatment, Zephaniah still held significant power through the virtue of his British passport. ‘I knew I had the power to end them running with their guns between their legs, all I had to do was produce my passport at the right time. These soldiers had a real dilemma: they had to be very nice to the tourists but not very nice to the Palestinians.’ Witnessing first-hand the appalling conditions in Gaza, Zephaniah immediately drew comparisons with ‘Nazi concentration camps’ and described clashes with soldiers followed by Palestinians being kidnapped and marched off to an unknown fate.

In contrast to the unabashed racism he experienced at the hands of Israeli soldiers, Rasta Time in Palestine portrays the warmth, solidarity and hospitality of the Palestinian people, who ‘treated me like a king,’ in Zephaniah’s own words. Even under the crushing weight of occupation, Palestinians still took the time to offer him the comfort of their homes and the food from their tables. Zephaniah left Palestine with a raging fire in his belly, and resolved to spend the rest of his life doing ‘everything I can to help their cause.’

Elder to Ancestor

In passing, Benjamin Zephaniah has made the metaphysical-spiritual transition from Elder to Ancestor. Ancestors are never truly dead, but rather they live on through their descendants who continue to carry out their struggle. In the fight against racism, state violence and discrimination, his work lives on. As the country marches continues to march for a liberated Palestine and direct action is taken against arms factories facilitating the current genocide, Zephaniah’s legacy persists. His 1995 track from his Back to Roots LP entitled Palestine today continues to serve as an anthem for Palestinian liberation:

‘Chant it from the mountaintop, Palestine lives!

In song and poem chant it, Palestine lives!

In your drums and in your lute, Palestine lives!

We have always known the truth, Palestine lives!’