Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah’s untimely passing over to be with the ancestors happened a few weeks before the usual New Year’s Honours list. Among the multiple reasons I admire Zephaniah, the one that stands out, is his refusal to accept an OBE from the establishment and its ‘Firm’ around which Empire’s lasting effect continues to thrive. Zephaniah is clear about his refusal: “I get angry when I hear the word ’empire’; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds me of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers brutalised”. Benjamin Zephaniah is, of course, part of quite a long list of people who have refused to be coopted into ‘Empire’s Honour’ scheme.

Past and current/ongoing scandals and revelations about the actual lives, dealings and slippery meanderings of awardees have further convinced me that ‘refuseniks’ such as Zephaniah stand tall on principle and integrity, a rare quality these days. Dissing any honour system is as subversive as we can get. This is not to dismiss the excellent work that generous and community minded people continue to do especially where their primary motivation is that of ‘love of neighbour/community’, towards some form of transformation of lives, and a heart for the common good. These individuals, working beyond the call of duty’, are quickly visible on any ‘honour’ list, standing out from the ‘celebrities’, donors and privileged individuals.

Zephaniah’s subversive act nails a critical issue: that of the systemic underpinnings driving the Honours’ List and its ultimate motivation. The ‘interest’ knows very well how to protect and keep ‘their interest’ – the Status Quo in place. Empire, goliaths and babylon ‘shitstems’ (borrowing from Peter Tosh) and its extractive capitalist motivation will never easily give up its power, status, privilege, and wealth. Cooption and inducing through the convergence of interest are among their strategic moves which even the most vocal anti-establishment voices are not immune from. Sadly, empire has enough worshippers of all hues and these ‘honour lists’ may be one of those intentional ways to evangelise and grow the imperial congregation to ensure the longevity of monarchy. We must not be fooled: the forces in our society and within each one of us that are seeking to keep us in our ‘place’ are very pervasive, persuasive, subtle, and strong. Do recall that line from Ginger in the cartoon film Chicken Run: “You know what the problem is? The fences aren’t just round the farm. They’re up here, in you heads.” Zephaniah and the other refuseniks did not allow elite capture and interest convergence to continue to entrap and coverup the sins of awarding or appeasing establishment with any imperial awards.

Zephaniah remembered well! Such necessary remembering remains a threat and an act of subversion. To forget and be coopted is what the establishment feeds on to ensure their dominance over us A 2022 exhibition by artist Alberta Whittle titled ‘deep dive (pause) uncoiling memory’ takes on what the artist describes as the ‘luxury of amnesia’ that, is ‘a state of privileged communal memory loss in which we are able to forget and overlook the atrocities of the past, allowing us to drift into a state of lethargy and inertia’. The title has an intentional pause to lead viewers into giving thought to what they may have forgotten as part of the ‘process of unlearning’ towards ‘intervening into what we understand of as history’.Benjamin Zephaniah, now located on the ‘other side’  continue to urge us to remember well: to grapple with the reach of coloniality, elite capture, and how we may be unwittingly lured into perpetuating the virus.

 So, let me end this piece with an slant excerpt from James Garner’s redux version of the Emperor’s New Clothes :

“The emperor is naked!” The parade stopped. The Emperor paused. A hush fell over the crowd, until one quick-thinking peasant shouted: “No, he isn’t. the emperor is merely endorsing a clothing-optional life style!” A cheer went up from the crowd, and the throngs stripped off their clothes and danced in the sun, as nature had intended. The country was clothing-optional from that day forward, and the tailor, deprived of any livelihood, packed up his needle and thread and was never heard from again.” [James Finn Garner, Politically Correct Bedtime Stories 1994, p.8]

The emperor, his progeny and their empire are well and alive!

©caribleaper January 2024