School of Distance Education
English Literature in the 21
st
century
17
He goes on to list another set of misconceptions
that we learned along the way. To us a Palestinian child
doesn’t matter, hating Iran is normal, bombing
Afghanistan
is alright, bombing your way to peace is a
practical solution, all these lies that media and the
government cooked for citizens,
people believed it,
without suspicion.
Anti black violence, media misinterpretation,
state violence, they firm the major part of Zepaniah' s
poetry. Imperialistic nature of state and the egalitarian
western democratic social
order is challenged so many
times by the clever use of sarcasm and imagery.
Zephaniah, throughout his life exposed to abuse and
rights violations, makes this poem an open book. He
questions the identity vested upon him by white men and
authoritarian states. The poem is a battleground where
his bestowed identity and his authentic self come to
confront one another.
Another major point Zephaniah makes is how the
Middle East has been perceived by the media. The War
on Terror was an imperialistic phenomenon, he believes.
Favoring
the imperialistic interests, the media functions
as a mouthpiece for blatant lies. The poem takes its aim
at interlocking configurations of state violence, anti
black racial domination and media representations of
people of color.