Vanity Of Vanties: OBEying The Empire
Watching the debates on ‘The Pledge’ on Sky News has shown me how resistant Britain is to talks about empire and race.
After the Windrush Scandal and Brexit, that resistance was put onto the world stage. It got me to think about British history but also the Queen’s Honours lists, for New Year and her birthday. When people are named a member of the British Empire (MBE), it leaves me feeling icky inside. Order of the British Empire (OBE), Commander of the British Empire (CBE). It’s all a bit obsolete, drawing up thoughts of genocide, conquest and stolen land.
When I hear the word “empire,” especially in this country, it brings up slavery. It’s reminiscent of how my ancestors were slaves in Jamaica and Grenada. It’s Apartheid, the American Revolution, the Suez Crisis, Potato Famine, the Mau Mau, the Amritsar Massacre and so much more. Empire is poor people under the boot of aristocracy, and poor doesn’t discriminate by colour or creed.
It’s millions brutalised; and it’s because of Britain’s nostalgia for this history that I grew up going to school being taught Black history as slavery. We didn’t even get as far postwar immigration, as that’s the other common denominator of the Black British narrative. It’s because of that, why I don’t know my name.
Not Ventour, that’s simply a slave name. I don’t know the name my ancestors had before Ventour was forced upon them by the slave master.
My crisis of identity is not due to history, it’s more so due to the present day climate where British people of colour are routinely having their Britishness contested. I’m staunchly anti-monarchy and anti-empire. And there’s something weird about debating the concept of the Queen’s Honours with people who are either ambivalent to it or are so pro-monarchy that they can’t possibly acknowledge that there’s negative connotations with the Royal institution. I’ve been in quite a few discussions with people about the monarchy. Thankfully, none have gotten ugly and we’re still friends today.
These Honours awards are to people that have made significant contributions to society through their professions — from arts, including: theatre, literature and film — to everyday people doing great work in the community, to journalists. That last one, I’m don’t like. Should journalists really be accepting awards from people they regular critique and even have vilified? In my opinion, there’s a conflict of interest when The Press are listed in the Honours.
The Honours awards are a slap in the face of multiracial / working-class Britain. When it comes to the British Empire, many have asked does the end justify the means? And my reply to that is, no. How much is life worth to you? You cannot justify torture and genocide. Life isn’t flesh for cash. It’s not a business. And those colonial statues littered throughout Britain, including London, Bristol and Glasgow; all those British streets named for slave traders; all those White imperialistic university module choices — the concept of “The Honours” feels like Britain is clinging on to a past bygone. Given the chance, would Britain enslave its Black British population? Would it let three million Indians die in the Bengal Famine if the circumstances were to present themselves? Would it commit to a Scramble for Africa and a starving Ireland?
The Royal Family (as an institution) sanctioned slavery and yet millions still defend it. Truth is, I don’t understand how anyone, regardless of their background can accept awards with those colonial attachments!
They were built from a system that oppressed people of colour, women and the LGBTQ+ community. There are many people of colour that love those awards. It makes them feel accomplished, whilst simultaneously speaking out against racism. Whilst being part of the system they speak out against, they’re some of its proudest members. They are activists against the ruling class but at the same time accept invitations to Buckingham Palace. I know, nothing makes sense. They love to bow to Babylon. It’s really quite confusing.
People say I’m too angry. Bitter. Too political. And I think even they would be seduced, given the chance. Call me judgemental, but I think our ancestors would turn in their graves at the sight of this. I would do it for such and such a reason, they’d comment. To accept awards from an institution that oppressed us to begin with; is that some sort of twisted version of Stockholm Syndrome?
These awards go to Joe and Jane Bloggs. They go to musicians, authors, poets, business people, celebrities and so many more. These awards are given to people, irrespective of class or colour. Seeing those three letters after their name feels like betrayal. Should I bow to them? Do I have to act impressed?
I openly recite my own poems that critique British history, including empire and conquest, and how those things impact the present day.
I’ve been called racist, anti-Britain, and anti-White (I’m anti-White Supremacy). But really, I want to reach an audience of people that are willing to listen. That the history we’re taught at school is what my mother would call “chang-chang” — in bits a pieces. Did Christopher Columbus discover the Americas or was he only the first White man to get there? Could the same be said for Captain Cook with Australia? Is explorer a synonym for coloniser?
I’m just a poet. What in the old days people would call a bard. What the Celts called the Awen. I probably will never be offered one of those awards. And if I was — to accept one would be to lose my honour. I wouldn’t be able to look my younger brother in the eye. I would lose all pride and respect for myself. Which is why I have so much respect for the artists and people that decline these awards and live their best life doing what they do best, living livelihoods without want of incentive, be it an OBE or being named Poet Laureate.
Your Benjamin Zephaniahs and Ken Loaches. Who both showed me that art is more than the Tate, The National Gallery and arthouse cinema.
That poetry is more than Tennyson, Blake and Wordsworth, that history is written in black and white. It’s poor people, LGBTQ+ and women and…
“ How lucky we are to be alive right now” — The Schuyler Sisters
And anyone close to me will know why I hate January 1 and The Queen’s Birthday, since it’s the date the those Honours lists are released. A better honour would be if the British Museum gave those stolen pieces back to places like Ghana and Greece. OBEs, CBEs, MBEs , knighthoods — genocide, slavery, torture, class oppression, massacres and more massacres, war and violence — and it’s 2019. Why won’t the Empire shut its mouth?
Let history be history. Empire is not cause for celebration. For every colonial statue there should be a slave child next to it or a starving woman, a symbol of how the end doesn’t justify the means.
