ZEPHANIAH CONVINCES JOURNO TO DROP BRITISH AWARD

The world reflects on Benjamin Zephaniah's legacy, one of Britain's finest anti-colonial poets, who passed away last week at the age of 65. We are reminded of when a journalist said he had made her re-think holding onto her Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) medal. Zephaniah had himself turned it down because it indicates loyalty to the empire.

For the global south, British imperialism involved the indignity of occupation, the theft of natural resources as well as slavery. It was nothing like the high living standards experienced in the imperial core. Accepting such an award would have been a betrayal of Zephaniah's principles.

Britain still presents a sanitised image of its empire, which spanned the globe as the largest of its kind until the mid-20th century, when the United States overtook it. To date, many are knocking on the UK's door, calling for reparations for the impact of its slave trade and colonisation. Barbados, for example, demands $4.9 trillion. Meanwhile, its debt to India was recently estimated at $45 trillion. Despite this, the British government has not apologised, which could be used in a court of law to kick off a reparations process. On King Charles III's recent visit to Kenya, he only offered a statement of regret.