Spotlight on elements of racism still latent in British society
Sometimes, at the Book Festival, you want to collapse time just a little so that, for example, there could be a conversation between “godfathers of hiphop”, The Last Poets, and MOBO award-winning artist Akala, who appeared in the same theatre exactly 24 hours later.
Unlike The Last Poets, Akala wasn’t performing, but rather – in his developing role as an author, activist and commentator – talking about his book, Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire.
Drawing on his upbringing in a single-parent family in Camden “before mixed race children became an acceptable designer accessory”, he offered a persuasive, articulate critique of the elements of racism still latent in British society.
He questioned the widespread concern about black-on-black violence in London, when the murder rate in the city is not significantly higher per head of population than in Scotland, and the emphasis on race which “gives the impression that these people are foreigners and they brought this problem with them from elsewhere”.
“What’s happening is that the black underclass, essentially, is being used as an ideological weapon against the other 99 per cent of black people who are not going to kill anyone.”
The theme of poets taking a role in public life continued on Saturday with Owen Sheers discussing his extended poem To Provide All People celebrating the 70th anniversary of the NHS, which was made into a film starring actors including Martin Freeman, Michael Sheen and Jonathan Pryce, and shown on BBC2 earlier this year.
Based on more than 70 hours of interviews with staff and patients, it demonstrates poetry’s ability to encapsulate big ideas while illuminating small but significant moments.
Sheers talked about his decision, made after much deliberation, to include elements of his own family’s “intimate experience” of the National Health Service after his second child was born prematurely and needed special care. He did not shrink from taking a political view on the NHS, “possibly the most beautiful and radical idea we’ve had in this country”, and aired the concern of many of his interviewees about the “creeping privatisation” of the service, particularly in England.
And he celebrated Aneurin Bevan, the young Welsh minister for health and housing in Attlee’s post-war government, whose courage and ingenuity made the idea a reality in the face of significant opposition, not least from doctors themselves.
The power of poetry to tackle big themes through illuminating the small and precious was also demonstrated in an earlier reading by distinguished poet Ruth Padel.
Her new collection, Emerald, is the product of her research into the precious stone – “the only gem in which flaws are prized” – which then was overtaken by the loss of her mother, and became a beautiful fusion of grief and celebration.