1 00:01:00,240 --> 00:01:08,130 Welcome, everyone, to this special landmark event this evening, a conversation between Benjamin Zephaniah, 2 00:01:08,130 --> 00:01:17,430 poet, lyricist, musician and activist and the writer and editor Malachi Mackintosh. 3 00:01:17,430 --> 00:01:22,380 Our conversation will be vocalised through Benjamin's remarkable autobiography, 4 00:01:22,380 --> 00:01:28,210 The Life and Times of Benjamin Zephaniah, which came out in twenty eighteen. 5 00:01:28,210 --> 00:01:37,480 And we'll be exploring how Benjamin Zephaniah art and activism have gone hand in hand throughout his career. 6 00:01:37,480 --> 00:01:38,950 My name is Ellika Burma. 7 00:01:38,950 --> 00:01:46,570 I'm the professor of world literature in English here at the University of Oxford and I'm director of the Oxford Centre for Life Writing, 8 00:01:46,570 --> 00:01:58,100 which is based at Wolfson College. I'm also investigator on the Writers Make Worlds Open Educational Resources website project, 9 00:01:58,100 --> 00:02:04,960 which is hosted in English and which is one of the parties bringing this event to you tonight. 10 00:02:04,960 --> 00:02:11,980 This conversation, which was planned to take place in March twenty twenty, necessarily postponed by covid, 11 00:02:11,980 --> 00:02:18,100 was and is the culminating event in the webinar series Art and Action, 12 00:02:18,100 --> 00:02:25,180 led by Sandra Meor, based at the University of Vienna, and Ruth Scobey here in Oxford. 13 00:02:25,180 --> 00:02:29,890 It is brought to you in association with several different groups to whom we are 14 00:02:29,890 --> 00:02:35,090 all very grateful and I would like to give a shout out by mentioning them all. 15 00:02:35,090 --> 00:02:42,860 To torch our wonderful humanity centre and to the Schwartzmann cultural programme, to the story museum, 16 00:02:42,860 --> 00:02:51,920 where we are meeting tonight to art and action and to the already mentioned self-funded Writers Make Worlds project. 17 00:02:51,920 --> 00:02:56,540 The video recording of this event will be available to everyone to watch again 18 00:02:56,540 --> 00:03:03,420 afterwards on YouTube through Writers Make Worlds and through the Torch website. 19 00:03:03,420 --> 00:03:08,120 Also live streaming. Tonight, we have a live audience, which is really fantastic. 20 00:03:08,120 --> 00:03:19,090 So welcome to everyone out there watching live. In a moment, I'll be handing over to Wes Williams, the director of Torch to chair the event. 21 00:03:19,090 --> 00:03:25,880 But before I do that, I should like to say some introductory words about the two main speakers. 22 00:03:25,880 --> 00:03:31,400 Benjamin Zephaniah is one of Britain's most eminent contemporary poets, 23 00:03:31,400 --> 00:03:41,960 widely known for his compelling spoken word and recorded performances and award winning playwright, novelist, children's author and musician. 24 00:03:41,960 --> 00:03:49,280 He's also a committed activist and outspoken campaigner for human and animal rights. 25 00:03:49,280 --> 00:03:57,890 He appears regularly on radio and TV and at literary festivals and has also taken part in plays and films, 26 00:03:57,890 --> 00:04:02,780 most famously, perhaps too many, I'm sure, Peaky Blinders. 27 00:04:02,780 --> 00:04:11,120 He continues to record and perform with his reggae band, recently releasing the album Revolutionary Minds. 28 00:04:11,120 --> 00:04:18,470 His autobiography, The Life and Times of Benjamin Zephaniah, was shortlisted for the Coster Biography Award. 29 00:04:18,470 --> 00:04:26,810 In that book, he talks about young people making meaningful music that properly reflects their lives. 30 00:04:26,810 --> 00:04:36,710 In the book, he also tells a very meaningful story, reflecting on his own life and speaking in fascinating ways about being a black writer, 31 00:04:36,710 --> 00:04:46,410 activist and media figure in Britain today in the twenty twenties, we so look forward to hearing more about this in the conversation. 32 00:04:46,410 --> 00:04:56,480 Malachi Mackintosh is editor and publishing director of The Amazing was a theory, a black British and Asian arts and cultural journal. 33 00:04:56,480 --> 00:05:02,390 He previously led the Runnymede Trust's Award winning our migration story project 34 00:05:02,390 --> 00:05:07,230 and also lectured in postcolonial literature at the University of Cambridge. 35 00:05:07,230 --> 00:05:13,850 He's the author of Immigration and Caribbean Literature and editor of Beyond Calypso. 36 00:05:13,850 --> 00:05:21,650 His fiction and non-fiction have been published very widely, including in the Caribbean Review of Books and in The Guardian. 37 00:05:21,650 --> 00:05:28,610 With the focus in his work on the potency of art and writing to effect positive cultural change, 38 00:05:28,610 --> 00:05:36,320 I can't think of a better interlocutor today for Benjamin Zephaniah than Malachi Mackintosh. 39 00:05:36,320 --> 00:05:43,760 Just before I hand over to them both, just a final word about art and action with whom we are collaborating today. 40 00:05:43,760 --> 00:05:50,660 It's a project funded by the Austrian Science Fund, and it explores the intersections between authorship, 41 00:05:50,660 --> 00:06:00,920 politics, activism and celebrity across historical periods and across a great variety of media. 42 00:06:00,920 --> 00:06:12,860 The conference that didn't take place moved into a series of really great webinars that you can access on YouTube and through the torch website, 43 00:06:12,860 --> 00:06:17,390 and I, I warmly invite you to do that. They are fantastic discussions. 44 00:06:17,390 --> 00:06:24,680 This is the culminating discussion. So without further ado, let me hand over Benjamin. 45 00:06:24,680 --> 00:06:31,730 You're very welcome to this platform at the Story Museum. And where's Williams and Malachi McIntosh? 46 00:06:31,730 --> 00:06:41,050 A warm welcome to you, too. And over to you. Thank you. 47 00:06:41,050 --> 00:06:44,470 Good evening and a very warm welcome to you all. 48 00:06:44,470 --> 00:06:50,110 Thank you for joining us this evening as we come to you live again from the Story Museum here in Oxford. 49 00:06:50,110 --> 00:06:53,530 My name is, like I said, is Professor Williams. I'm the director of Torch. 50 00:06:53,530 --> 00:07:00,520 And it's my enormous pleasure and honour to be able to be here and collaborate in this wonderful event this evening. 51 00:07:00,520 --> 00:07:05,650 As I also said, this event is also part of the humanities cultural programme, 52 00:07:05,650 --> 00:07:10,720 part of our big tent live event series that's been going on all the way through the pandemic. 53 00:07:10,720 --> 00:07:14,270 And this programme is itself one of the founding stones for the future. 54 00:07:14,270 --> 00:07:22,810 Stephen Schwarzman, Centre for the Humanities. We are, as you can see, socially distancing safely live streaming this event. 55 00:07:22,810 --> 00:07:28,870 And we hope that you're all safe and well wherever you are in the world. Before I hand over to our two speakers this evening, 56 00:07:28,870 --> 00:07:36,370 I'd like to remind you that you can share any comments and questions for them in the live chat just below the image on YouTube. 57 00:07:36,370 --> 00:07:42,970 I'll come back in about three quarters of an hour and mediate the questions back through to the two of them. 58 00:07:42,970 --> 00:07:49,090 Welcome, Malakai. Welcome. Benjamin, you've both been introduced already by Ellika, so there's no need for me to say any more. 59 00:07:49,090 --> 00:07:54,700 And without further ado, I'm delighted really to invite you to begin your conversation. 60 00:07:54,700 --> 00:07:59,990 I'll be back in about three quarters of an hour. Thanks for us. 61 00:07:59,990 --> 00:08:06,860 Thank you. Thanks. Thank you for having us as well. It is very strange to be talking to you in this format, 62 00:08:06,860 --> 00:08:11,900 sitting across each other on a bench with a nonexistent audience when people at home, obviously. 63 00:08:11,900 --> 00:08:16,730 But that said, it's a it's a huge, huge, huge honour to be here with you this evening. 64 00:08:16,730 --> 00:08:21,170 And the focus of the conversation, as I said, is your autobiography mainly. 65 00:08:21,170 --> 00:08:22,520 But it'd be nice to talk around. 66 00:08:22,520 --> 00:08:32,590 And I think given the circumstances in which we're meeting, the first thing I wanted to ask you is, how's your year been? 67 00:08:32,590 --> 00:08:43,010 Wow. Year I begin to feel really guilty when I talk about my year because I've actually had a really good year, um. 68 00:08:43,010 --> 00:08:47,840 I've talked to some friends every day who are talking and talking about mental health during the last year. 69 00:08:47,840 --> 00:08:48,500 It was interesting. 70 00:08:48,500 --> 00:08:54,660 Some of them said, you know, they couldn't take isolation and all that stuff and they were some of it that weren't actually the world was going crazy. 71 00:08:54,660 --> 00:09:01,820 I'm glad it stopped. I just finished doing a tour with my band, a tour with my autobiography. 72 00:09:01,820 --> 00:09:08,540 Both of them kind of going simultaneously as well. I had all these other things going on and I was running all over the country. 73 00:09:08,540 --> 00:09:13,130 And to stop was actually quite good for me to actually stop and focus. 74 00:09:13,130 --> 00:09:22,870 I wrote a book with Rothschild and and I presented the TV series. 75 00:09:22,870 --> 00:09:28,720 You know, I got away from my university, um. 76 00:09:28,720 --> 00:09:34,750 I live in a really nice part of the country, right where I got fresh air. 77 00:09:34,750 --> 00:09:41,680 A family of deer came to live with me in my garden, literally camped out in my garden, a family of their company. 78 00:09:41,680 --> 00:09:50,840 I have a gym at home. I mean, it was cool, but my sister almost died, my brother in law, I must. 79 00:09:50,840 --> 00:09:54,590 I've got about six friends that died. 80 00:09:54,590 --> 00:10:02,390 You know, I've got relatives that live on the 10th floor of council flats in the middle of a city where the list broke and they couldn't get out. 81 00:10:02,390 --> 00:10:12,760 So me, I was OK, but then that's why I feel really guilty, because I hear lots of stories about other people and how they struggled. 82 00:10:12,760 --> 00:10:20,760 But I didn't and I think that if you are a creative person. 83 00:10:20,760 --> 00:10:27,840 If you are doing what you like and you are especially if you're obviously 84 00:10:27,840 --> 00:10:35,760 earning a living from it and you manage to kind of stay sane through the year, 85 00:10:35,760 --> 00:10:40,560 through writing or whatever, and even through other times, you know, when there's no pandemic on, 86 00:10:40,560 --> 00:10:45,960 you know, we must remember that we are doing things that we love to do. We are doing things that we probably would do anyway. 87 00:10:45,960 --> 00:10:55,260 If I were a painter and decorator, I would still be writing poetry. So I never take what I do for granted. 88 00:10:55,260 --> 00:10:58,500 I always remember. But there's people. 89 00:10:58,500 --> 00:11:05,730 There was a study done in the 80s that said, you know, 80 percent of the people going to work are going on the form of transport. 90 00:11:05,730 --> 00:11:09,630 They hate working with people. They hate doing a job they hate. 91 00:11:09,630 --> 00:11:13,950 You know, I mean, we are really lucky in the creative world. 92 00:11:13,950 --> 00:11:22,690 And this is a very long answer to your question, but I remember at my university once talking to cleaners. 93 00:11:22,690 --> 00:11:30,790 And another academic came along and I just arrived, and I'm not I don't have an academic background and I just arrived in academia and they kind of. 94 00:11:30,790 --> 00:11:35,080 And they were kind of showing me the ropes and he said, you know, you don't have to talk to them, Benjamin. 95 00:11:35,080 --> 00:11:40,520 And I was like. You know what's wrong with talking to a cleaner? 96 00:11:40,520 --> 00:11:45,680 This is this is where my family come from, you know, basically, you know, the National Health Service workers, 97 00:11:45,680 --> 00:11:54,830 etc. I just never forget the people that clean the streets, that clean the toilets, that do all that stuff, because I could be doing it. 98 00:11:54,830 --> 00:12:02,830 And so. I had a good luck there and it didn't really bother me, but I really feel for those people that. 99 00:12:02,830 --> 00:12:03,810 It did. 100 00:12:03,810 --> 00:12:13,600 Yeah, yeah, and what you say about, you know, I don't know, the idea that that could very easily have been your path resonates with me, too, I think. 101 00:12:13,600 --> 00:12:22,950 And about the year. So, you know, as you said, you had space, you had the family, you had, you know, the work that you would be doing anyway. 102 00:12:22,950 --> 00:12:27,130 Of course, in the last year, there's been in the broader national context, 103 00:12:27,130 --> 00:12:31,990 if not international context, this huge amount of turmoil, not just around covid, 104 00:12:31,990 --> 00:12:38,140 but I think in England and particularly in the United Kingdom in particular, this political turmoil, 105 00:12:38,140 --> 00:12:45,490 which when rereading your autobiography felt reminiscent of the Times and when your career sort of launched in the eighties. 106 00:12:45,490 --> 00:12:54,430 Really, I just wonder what your thoughts might have been around all of that as that was unrolling Boris Johnson, Brexit happening? 107 00:12:54,430 --> 00:12:58,180 You know, the culture wars, quote unquote, that are taking place at the moment, 108 00:12:58,180 --> 00:13:07,900 we just thought Brexit was interesting, is interesting, because with Brexit, I began to suffer. 109 00:13:07,900 --> 00:13:18,550 The kind of racism that I experienced in the 80s, I wasn't beaten up by any racist, but I had four or five experiences on the street. 110 00:13:18,550 --> 00:13:25,790 I love jogging where people kind of shouted racist things to me as I was jogging and. 111 00:13:25,790 --> 00:13:37,000 And an even threatened once. But actually, when it comes to politics generally, when I say politics, 112 00:13:37,000 --> 00:13:43,600 I mean when it comes to issues about race and gender and stuff like that, I do think that. 113 00:13:43,600 --> 00:13:49,600 I kind of came to all this in the 70s, really, and then the 80s were the real years of struggle, 114 00:13:49,600 --> 00:13:56,380 and in the 90s I thought that, you know, we've dealt with sexism, racism, war, making music together. 115 00:13:56,380 --> 00:14:01,880 It was sold to soul. It was all getting together and jamming and, you know, mixed race children. 116 00:14:01,880 --> 00:14:09,370 You know, if you were said to me, then could you imagine an organisation like the EDL or I would have said, absolutely not. 117 00:14:09,370 --> 00:14:13,570 Look look at the direction we're going in, but look where we are. 118 00:14:13,570 --> 00:14:22,210 And I think that and one of the problems with. 119 00:14:22,210 --> 00:14:34,100 The state of the world right now is not just that. People are some people are showing an ugly side of xenophobic, racist, sexist. 120 00:14:34,100 --> 00:14:39,980 It's about. For people who rule them. 121 00:14:39,980 --> 00:14:47,930 Are the sexist and racist. This is not just me theorising, they've said it when you've got leaders of big countries, 122 00:14:47,930 --> 00:14:52,160 leaders of the free world, boasting about how you can grope women, 123 00:14:52,160 --> 00:14:57,440 saying this is a perk of the job and you've got people like that guy here in Brazil, 124 00:14:57,440 --> 00:15:02,600 you know, just saying covid, it's just it's not that bad and let the people suffer. 125 00:15:02,600 --> 00:15:08,090 The important thing is chopping down the rainforest and having a party, whatever. 126 00:15:08,090 --> 00:15:13,970 I mean. When you've got people at the top, I'm an anarchist, I don't really like any of them. 127 00:15:13,970 --> 00:15:23,460 Right. Right. But when you got them at the top saying that, what do we say to our kids in Putnam and Handsworth and Oxford? 128 00:15:23,460 --> 00:15:30,940 And, you know, we used to say kind of. Look at society, you know, this is the way we've got we know we can't do that anymore. 129 00:15:30,940 --> 00:15:34,710 We've got to actually ignore society. We've got to do better than that. Hmm. 130 00:15:34,710 --> 00:15:42,360 That's weird. Yeah, that's very sad. And it. 131 00:15:42,360 --> 00:15:48,720 When I start my term in university, I as you know, I didn't really go to school, 132 00:15:48,720 --> 00:15:52,920 I didn't go to university, didn't go to college, I ended up in academia. 133 00:15:52,920 --> 00:15:59,390 So I usually say to my students that on paper, you're all more educated than me. 134 00:15:59,390 --> 00:16:06,710 It's quite a strange thing to say to your students at the start of the term, you are all more educated than me on paper from your professor. 135 00:16:06,710 --> 00:16:13,760 How did I get here? You know, with my help, you guys are going to get a good degree or whatever. 136 00:16:13,760 --> 00:16:20,250 But you know what? If you have a good degree and you don't have compassion, you don't have resolve and you don't have empathy. 137 00:16:20,250 --> 00:16:33,190 It's worth not being. So that's, I think, where it is at the moment, really going back to grassroots and educating people across route because. 138 00:16:33,190 --> 00:16:37,660 Really, a lot of the I've got to be careful out there. 139 00:16:37,660 --> 00:16:46,010 There's a lot of the educated classes. And a lot of very powerful people in India and educated classes. 140 00:16:46,010 --> 00:16:51,930 Not leading by example, we really don't want to follow the. 141 00:16:51,930 --> 00:16:56,300 So. That's what I think about the state of the world at the moment, 142 00:16:56,300 --> 00:17:04,020 it seems like and almost seems like you're saying things are worse now than they were in the 70s and. 143 00:17:04,020 --> 00:17:10,000 I remember once I was talking on radio about fighting the National Front in the east end of London. 144 00:17:10,000 --> 00:17:16,770 This is before all the Internet and all that. And I got home in a couple of weeks later, somebody wrote me a letter and he said, you know, 145 00:17:16,770 --> 00:17:22,370 I used to fight, you know, with a national front network, but I'm never a Buddhist monk. 146 00:17:22,370 --> 00:17:35,130 Right. It turned into a Buddhist monk and you could literally see the tears underpaid, you know, and I think he he realised that he's violent. 147 00:17:35,130 --> 00:17:45,550 Well, he said in the letter the violence was wrong and people are just people and that he was a thug. 148 00:17:45,550 --> 00:17:55,490 Well, now you have intellectuals that are racist, are you saying they shouldn't go together, but, you know, you have academic, racist academics. 149 00:17:55,490 --> 00:18:00,550 I've been doing television programmes and I'm going on to talk about my experience. 150 00:18:00,550 --> 00:18:07,570 I'm very sorry for balance. We can have a racist, I mean. 151 00:18:07,570 --> 00:18:14,150 So in one sense, things have got worse, I could meet that guy on the street and I could fight him. 152 00:18:14,150 --> 00:18:16,550 And I could say, you're wrong. Leave me alone because I'm black, 153 00:18:16,550 --> 00:18:23,700 I shouldn't be hitting anything and he can go away and smoke a spliff or whatever and get a confession and turn into a monk. 154 00:18:23,700 --> 00:18:24,380 Right. 155 00:18:24,380 --> 00:18:32,950 But when you got people that say that they have a canon of literature that backs them up, they've got science that backs them up and anything think. 156 00:18:32,950 --> 00:18:42,030 And they teach in the academy. I mean, it is worth I mean. 157 00:18:42,030 --> 00:18:45,870 And I going to make an analogy and I've got to be very careful to say this, 158 00:18:45,870 --> 00:18:52,890 but it's a bit like some women saying that, you know, I've been beaten by a partner, but the mental abuse was worse. 159 00:18:52,890 --> 00:19:02,730 Of course, the physical stuff hurts. But the mental abuse is is is can be worse. 160 00:19:02,730 --> 00:19:07,830 So, yeah, it could be worse. Yeah. Wendy, I mean, weren't there always racist academics? 161 00:19:07,830 --> 00:19:18,740 Are you saying they're been empowered in a way that they weren't before? They were, I guess, but they were really in the margins. 162 00:19:18,740 --> 00:19:23,170 They were really in the margins. Now they're on prime time television. 163 00:19:23,170 --> 00:19:35,240 No, they have parties. You know, I remember I'm going to be very careful not to call names, but I remember doing a TV programme with a well-known. 164 00:19:35,240 --> 00:19:42,700 Xenophobe. And very respectable, you know, he's got a legal political party, 165 00:19:42,700 --> 00:19:48,850 but then I saw his security behind him and I looked at them and I kind of thought, I recognise these guys. 166 00:19:48,850 --> 00:19:52,670 And again, it was the guy that I was fighting in the 70s and 80s. 167 00:19:52,670 --> 00:20:02,310 They put on suits and they got jobs with security. So it's a very difficult question to answer about. 168 00:20:02,310 --> 00:20:07,550 Have we got better or worse? Things have changed. Things have changed. 169 00:20:07,550 --> 00:20:14,320 I wrote a poem called This Policeman Keeps On Kicking Me to Death in 1978. 170 00:20:14,320 --> 00:20:24,130 After the murder of George Floyd and a like being shown on the deaths in custody of people in Britain, that poem became popular. 171 00:20:24,130 --> 00:20:30,060 I hate to use that word, but, you know, people started going back to it and started reading it again and listening to it. 172 00:20:30,060 --> 00:20:37,240 It's a sign of the times we can go back to old stuff about our struggle and it's still relevant. 173 00:20:37,240 --> 00:20:44,960 There's a documentary about the first Coppen rhythm, which is now unitive for everybody who's watching the fight. 174 00:20:44,960 --> 00:20:51,600 I know. I know that one on the street that you hate it. And I can talk about why, but there are some really amazing scenes in it. 175 00:20:51,600 --> 00:20:56,200 And one of them is you reading. I think it might be that same poem. 176 00:20:56,200 --> 00:21:00,000 Yes. In Trafalgar Square. Yes. In front of people. 177 00:21:00,000 --> 00:21:08,550 Yes. So we're doing the Nazi salute, you know, and that's really interesting because it fills me doing this poem actually with them, not me. 178 00:21:08,550 --> 00:21:09,870 Yes. I love that poem, by the way. 179 00:21:09,870 --> 00:21:18,900 And in that poem, all I'm saying to Raices is that when I hear some of these races talking about why they're angry, I agree with them. 180 00:21:18,900 --> 00:21:25,140 Right. What I'm saying to them, it's not my fault. So if you get knocked out and you want to fight, fight them, not me. 181 00:21:25,140 --> 00:21:32,760 If you check out the scene and things ain't right, see them? Not me. I came, I saw I live here and I have my tribulation to be getting uptight. 182 00:21:32,760 --> 00:21:39,210 And you really want to fight them, not me. If you live in a kitchen and you can't afford chicken, bleep them, not me. 183 00:21:39,210 --> 00:21:47,650 I'm pleading with them. I'm saying I agree with you. So let me and you get together and deal with the people who are pressing all of us. 184 00:21:47,650 --> 00:21:49,380 That's all I'm saying. That poem anyway, 185 00:21:49,380 --> 00:21:58,740 I'm doing it in Trafalgar Square and the cameraman is filming and I come to the end of the poem and I think he wanted a clapperboard or something. 186 00:21:58,740 --> 00:22:04,680 You didn't get one. So he kind of went like that because you see the camera goes like that and then it just catches two people. 187 00:22:04,680 --> 00:22:16,450 See Kaylin. Broad daylight, Trafalgar Square, skinhead folks, and that's what it was like then in the middle of the day, 188 00:22:16,450 --> 00:22:24,830 walking around throughout square doing Nazi salutes and nobody did a thing. 189 00:22:24,830 --> 00:22:31,370 And they came to my and. Yes, actually, every one of them is the one that wrote to you. 190 00:22:31,370 --> 00:22:34,230 And that's a good way of kind of moving in this. Right. 191 00:22:34,230 --> 00:22:42,080 Writing something I didn't want to talk about, which is your autobiography, gives us a very detailed picture of that point in time, 192 00:22:42,080 --> 00:22:50,300 some of the 70s, 80s, when you were coming up, when your career started, which we don't really get often. 193 00:22:50,300 --> 00:22:54,560 Right. So there's more and more focus was just this week on the Windrush generation. 194 00:22:54,560 --> 00:23:01,370 So your parents? My grandparents. And there's a lot of focus, I think, in good and bad ways. 195 00:23:01,370 --> 00:23:07,940 And the contemporary generation of young Londoners in particular, and artists, musicians and, you know, especially. 196 00:23:07,940 --> 00:23:14,660 But that moment in time, particularly the expanse of black Britons outside of London, as you are in Birmingham, 197 00:23:14,660 --> 00:23:20,030 I feel like the spotlight doesn't get shown on that very well when I was do my autobiography. 198 00:23:20,030 --> 00:23:31,760 Well, you see how it starts. I really didn't want to do what you know, but I thought if I was going to do one, it had to be not just about me. 199 00:23:31,760 --> 00:23:36,350 Which is quite ironic because I did see a review once, I don't really read review that much, 200 00:23:36,350 --> 00:23:41,690 but a woman was complaining that I just read Benjamin Zephaniah autobiography and he keeps talking about himself. 201 00:23:41,690 --> 00:23:54,860 What do you think? And I really tried to make it about me as much as possible fundamental misunderstanding of the genre. 202 00:23:54,860 --> 00:24:01,940 But I really wanted to be kind of a documentation of what was going on politically and culturally. 203 00:24:01,940 --> 00:24:03,680 And I don't claim to be an expert, 204 00:24:03,680 --> 00:24:13,570 but from what I saw and what affected me and how it affected my writing and it's really interesting because when we get to. 205 00:24:13,570 --> 00:24:23,890 If we came across any any writing like that, it was always American, you know, Malcolm X, James Baldwin, that's what we were read. 206 00:24:23,890 --> 00:24:31,580 And it's interesting, after my autobiography was published, I got letters from America saying at last, you know. 207 00:24:31,580 --> 00:24:37,660 They weren't comparing me to Malcolm X, but they were saying black British experience is being documented. 208 00:24:37,660 --> 00:24:40,670 And I think it was right around that time, around the same time. 209 00:24:40,670 --> 00:24:47,050 Carter's book came out and in and his book came out and a few other things came out, which I thought was just really good. 210 00:24:47,050 --> 00:24:50,770 We are now creating a kind of work that represents us. 211 00:24:50,770 --> 00:24:58,930 And we're not just kind of reading American stuff and thinking that we have nothing to offer. 212 00:24:58,930 --> 00:25:05,110 But yes, it's. I find myself kind of just. 213 00:25:05,110 --> 00:25:07,330 Talking to young cats, 214 00:25:07,330 --> 00:25:12,790 I'm just talking and I think I'm just having a conversation about some music I was listening to and then at the end of the conversation to go, 215 00:25:12,790 --> 00:25:16,840 wow, that was amazing history just about you. 216 00:25:16,840 --> 00:25:27,220 Just a moment ago, I was going to LA. You know, you talk about the range of generation, your parents, my grandparents, I'm old enough to remember. 217 00:25:27,220 --> 00:25:33,340 It is a time when, like, you know, ladies used to come up to me and you think, oh, yeah, I like your work. 218 00:25:33,340 --> 00:25:37,480 And I think, yeah, you're cool enough not to want to go. 219 00:25:37,480 --> 00:25:43,480 Oh, my parents used to read your poetry to me. Yes, I am old. 220 00:25:43,480 --> 00:25:51,490 Well, it's important that we kind of write our document, our history, and we do it truthfully. 221 00:25:51,490 --> 00:26:02,020 And one of my obsessions has been in writing my autobiography or in interviews, as I said to you before we started, you know, there's no no go areas. 222 00:26:02,020 --> 00:26:05,440 I believe in absolute honesty. I like being like. 223 00:26:05,440 --> 00:26:10,880 But I think it's important to be honest about your mistakes. Because that's how we learn. 224 00:26:10,880 --> 00:26:17,810 There's a line in one of my poems that says, I passed the university, I passed through sociology, and then I got a degree in dreadful ghetto ology. 225 00:26:17,810 --> 00:26:27,980 You know, I learnt by meeting people, by making mistakes, I learnt from the streets. 226 00:26:27,980 --> 00:26:35,630 And I think that's important, especially I don't want it to boil down to a conversation about men and race. 227 00:26:35,630 --> 00:26:41,830 But it's true, especially for black men, I think, when I grew up. 228 00:26:41,830 --> 00:26:46,090 There's no other way to put this. I grew up really sexist. 229 00:26:46,090 --> 00:26:54,400 All the men around me were really sexist. And I remember my sisters had a doll once or they had many dolls. 230 00:26:54,400 --> 00:27:00,280 And I started combing their hair and my dad got me and he put me in a room and he said, Stop that man. 231 00:27:00,280 --> 00:27:06,820 I mean, I thought I didn't realise at the time he worried I got gay or something, but he was like, you stop that now and he has a gun. 232 00:27:06,820 --> 00:27:15,320 You play it back. But, you know, that's a light hearted kind of example of. 233 00:27:15,320 --> 00:27:19,010 Attitude to women, but there's lots of other things I could tell you about, which were really horrible. 234 00:27:19,010 --> 00:27:24,620 You may know that my mother was really beaten by my father. 235 00:27:24,620 --> 00:27:30,860 So I grew up really sexist and really strange attitude to lots of things. 236 00:27:30,860 --> 00:27:40,780 But I learnt that from other people. When I started to think for myself and and that's when the change happened. 237 00:27:40,780 --> 00:27:44,920 So I think it's important if you want to understand me, 238 00:27:44,920 --> 00:27:50,290 to understand how I got here and the journey and the mistakes I made, and that's why I'm so open. 239 00:27:50,290 --> 00:27:55,070 People in my family and lots of people, they stop talking about these things, stop talking about the. 240 00:27:55,070 --> 00:27:59,060 Even ex-girlfriends. I can't help here. 241 00:27:59,060 --> 00:28:08,910 You know, people really want to know who I am, I can stand here and could attempt to stand here and lie or sit here and lie and say that, you know. 242 00:28:08,910 --> 00:28:13,440 Well, what happened was I started to love literature and I grew up with literature. I grew up in a house of books. 243 00:28:13,440 --> 00:28:21,220 I didn't when my dad caught me with a book reading One Day in my hand, I said, what you boy, you've got nothing to do. 244 00:28:21,220 --> 00:28:28,530 Something for me to do before, you know, you read when you've got nothing to do. 245 00:28:28,530 --> 00:28:36,360 So, yeah, it's important that we are really honest about ourselves, about our journey and as black men, 246 00:28:36,360 --> 00:28:46,800 about our relationship with our mothers and with our partners, because we have to grow the people and as individuals and as individuals. 247 00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:51,540 Yes. Yeah. On that, there was a particular part, the autobiography, 248 00:28:51,540 --> 00:29:01,140 and I copied out that I wanted to talk about, which is almost the scene of conversion effectively. 249 00:29:01,140 --> 00:29:06,390 So the bit where you are at home, you've got a gun under your pillow. 250 00:29:06,390 --> 00:29:11,970 Yeah. And you're looking up at the ceiling. I might just I might, as you say, said better than I do. 251 00:29:11,970 --> 00:29:17,460 So one summer night in nineteen seventy eight, I lay on my bed looking up at the ceiling, wondering what life is all about. 252 00:29:17,460 --> 00:29:22,080 The ceiling seemed to represent the limits of my ambitions, but these ambitions were related to the circumstances. 253 00:29:22,080 --> 00:29:27,090 I found myself in some of the bad choices I made and some of the bad people I followed. 254 00:29:27,090 --> 00:29:29,250 It was time to really think for myself. 255 00:29:29,250 --> 00:29:36,700 I recalled my teacher at Broadway Comprehensive, telling me I was a born failure and that I would soon be dead or doing a life sentence in prison. 256 00:29:36,700 --> 00:29:42,060 I didn't have to be a mastermind to see that things carried on. That's where they would go effectively. 257 00:29:42,060 --> 00:29:45,330 I wanted to be a poet when I grew up and there always was looking at the ceiling that belonged to 258 00:29:45,330 --> 00:29:51,570 Birmingham Council with a gun under my pillow are some kind of triad gang mastodon or ghetto godfather, 259 00:29:51,570 --> 00:29:55,620 just as an eight year old me had done. I spoke the words out loud. I want to be a poet. 260 00:29:55,620 --> 00:30:01,950 I want to prove that teacher wrong. And then. That's what you do, which is kind of fascinating. 261 00:30:01,950 --> 00:30:05,550 So they're a couple of things that one is talking about effectively, 262 00:30:05,550 --> 00:30:15,270 like hypermasculinity and the culture and referring to the gang master, ghetto or ghetto godfather really sort of slots into that. 263 00:30:15,270 --> 00:30:22,530 But but bigger than and thinking about change, it seems like such a cinematic moment. 264 00:30:22,530 --> 00:30:27,240 You know, you're embedded like this and the guns are they're coming to get you and you decide you want to be a poet. 265 00:30:27,240 --> 00:30:39,190 Is that how it went down? It's absolutely. True, I mean, it's edited, there's more to it, but it's absolutely true, I did have a gun under my pillow. 266 00:30:39,190 --> 00:30:44,290 Somebody wanted to kill me because one of my guys that shot somebody else, 267 00:30:44,290 --> 00:30:50,950 we had a little crime syndicate going in and then it was just stealing tools from cars, which sounds so trivial now. 268 00:30:50,950 --> 00:30:57,190 But back then, it was a bit of a deal. You know, we crossed over into somebody's territory. 269 00:30:57,190 --> 00:31:04,860 A teacher had said to me when I got expelled from school, I'm going to end up dead or doing a life sentence. 270 00:31:04,860 --> 00:31:15,790 And I got to the point where I thought maybe she's right, you know, and then I said, I can prove a wrong. 271 00:31:15,790 --> 00:31:24,130 That whole piece there is why when I'm in school talking to small children and I say, can you tell us the most important thing you ever did? 272 00:31:24,130 --> 00:31:30,110 And I said it before, Leslie, which was think for myself. 273 00:31:30,110 --> 00:31:40,010 Learn to think for myself. When I was being the ghetto godfather, the Rastafarian Pecky Blinda, I wasn't really thinking for myself. 274 00:31:40,010 --> 00:31:46,070 You know, you have to get status by being big, by being bad, by putting people down. 275 00:31:46,070 --> 00:31:56,780 And I could do really well. But I wasn't really being true to myself, yeah, I can remember doing a burglary. 276 00:31:56,780 --> 00:32:03,800 And again, I say this with a smile on my face, and I'm when I'm performing, especially when I'm performing around Birmingham, 277 00:32:03,800 --> 00:32:10,580 I go on stage one of the first things I do, I apologise to the audience just in case I don't. 278 00:32:10,580 --> 00:32:14,000 Sometimes they put their finger here, you know, 279 00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:21,700 but I remember kind of doing a burglary in Birmingham and going in the house and looking at the bookshelves and thinking these people read. 280 00:32:21,700 --> 00:32:26,260 And memorising the smell of the house and. 281 00:32:26,260 --> 00:32:32,670 I have in my mind, kind of in a literary way, describing the feel of the carpet underneath my feet, 282 00:32:32,670 --> 00:32:38,610 and I think then we got out and then one of the guys who was like the watch guy said, what was it like? 283 00:32:38,610 --> 00:32:44,070 And I started to explain as if I was writing a novel. I said it was a great wall of literature. 284 00:32:44,070 --> 00:32:50,220 Where's the [INAUDIBLE] money? Stop talking like that. 285 00:32:50,220 --> 00:32:55,050 There was a part of me that always wanted to be a writer. I would always there's so many things in my novel, 286 00:32:55,050 --> 00:33:01,230 little snippets from real life when I was young and I remember them and I kind of thought to myself, I'm going to use that one day. 287 00:33:01,230 --> 00:33:06,330 But when I got a teacher, somebody is educated telling me that I'm going to end up dead or doing a life sentence, 288 00:33:06,330 --> 00:33:14,130 I hope she knows more about the world than me. So maybe she's right. And in that one night I said to myself. 289 00:33:14,130 --> 00:33:19,550 I am going to end up dead or doing a life sentence if I stay here. 290 00:33:19,550 --> 00:33:27,980 So I got in a car and I just drove to the car, wasn't even roadworthy, I drove to London and when I tell this story to schoolchildren, 291 00:33:27,980 --> 00:33:32,900 I tell them that I was involved in gangs, you know, and I was doing all these bad things. 292 00:33:32,900 --> 00:33:43,340 And then I went to London and guess what? Boys and girls, I got involved in another gang and the kids got a gang of poets and musicians and writers. 293 00:33:43,340 --> 00:33:48,980 And you can see all the kids are smiling because that's what it is. Yeah, we all need gangs. 294 00:33:48,980 --> 00:33:54,950 I said to an academic everyday that we are pack animals. And he corrected me, said, no, no, no, we are social animals. 295 00:33:54,950 --> 00:34:00,980 I understand there's a slight difference. I understand the difference. But we all like gangs. 296 00:34:00,980 --> 00:34:04,250 And so if you're a writer, you tend to know people who are writers. 297 00:34:04,250 --> 00:34:08,900 If you're a thief, you tend to know people who are you know, politicians are gangs. 298 00:34:08,900 --> 00:34:14,210 You have politicians on opposing sides. You go on holiday together, you know. 299 00:34:14,210 --> 00:34:19,550 Trust me, I've seen. So what is it about finding company? 300 00:34:19,550 --> 00:34:27,800 And I was really lucky. I came to London and the alternative cabaret movement started with direct mail electricity, although in French North people. 301 00:34:27,800 --> 00:34:39,930 And they were like after years and years of racist and sexist comedy and poetry, we said we're going to do something different. 302 00:34:39,930 --> 00:34:41,980 We didn't attack anybody. 303 00:34:41,980 --> 00:34:51,370 Unless they were politicians, you know, we would never laugh at somebody because they never said a word because of their race and ethnicity. 304 00:34:51,370 --> 00:34:55,960 We'd never mock women or anything like that. But Thatcher was OK. 305 00:34:55,960 --> 00:35:08,000 We could do her. So, yeah, it's about finding the right kind and and thinking for yourself is to me. 306 00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:20,260 It's the most important thing that people can do. Be really honest. Trust me, just ask people what they think about a certain issue and then dig down, 307 00:35:20,260 --> 00:35:27,160 because usually they'll start to answer as a British person or as a black man or what do you really think? 308 00:35:27,160 --> 00:35:34,310 And sometimes it takes time to really dig down and you can find a completely different answer to the one they started with. 309 00:35:34,310 --> 00:35:42,560 Because we all have this front and we all have this thing, which is all fakery, actually national or even race is a construct, 310 00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:48,350 but when it comes to nationality and the flag, you fly and all that stuff, it's all constructed stuff. 311 00:35:48,350 --> 00:35:55,130 You know, when you asked people what they really think, sometimes you can take time to dig down, but you can be surprised by the answers. 312 00:35:55,130 --> 00:36:02,360 Sometimes, I guess to an extent, you know, you thought about your dad taking that away from you. 313 00:36:02,360 --> 00:36:05,720 A lot of what we see the world through are those ideas that are projected onto us. 314 00:36:05,720 --> 00:36:10,350 Right. So in that case, masculinity or nationality or whatever, whatever else it is, 315 00:36:10,350 --> 00:36:14,240 don't you think it takes to you encourage people to think for themselves? 316 00:36:14,240 --> 00:36:26,920 And what's the first step in that process? The was the first step is usually reading a good book. 317 00:36:26,920 --> 00:36:31,560 It's just realising that you're important, but you're not the centre of the universe. 318 00:36:31,560 --> 00:36:41,130 And understanding that you're not when we say Black Lives Matter and we don't say all white people are racist, 319 00:36:41,130 --> 00:36:47,010 we say, you know, white people can kind of take on racist tendencies and not realise they're doing it. 320 00:36:47,010 --> 00:36:49,220 And in the. 321 00:36:49,220 --> 00:36:58,440 Workplace, in academia and in the music business, whatever, it doesn't mean that they're are horrible people, it just means look at yourself. 322 00:36:58,440 --> 00:37:05,160 And try to relearn some of your habits, whatever. That's what I realised when I realised that I was sexist. 323 00:37:05,160 --> 00:37:12,390 I said, right, I've got to be very conscious of some of the some of my attitudes and I've got to change my ways. 324 00:37:12,390 --> 00:37:21,580 And and. And the great thing was, I just said, it's going to make me a better person, you know, that might be selfish. 325 00:37:21,580 --> 00:37:27,580 I mean, I'm always going to help with the liberation of women, but it's going to make the person, do you know, and that's it. 326 00:37:27,580 --> 00:37:29,120 Yeah. Yeah. 327 00:37:29,120 --> 00:37:37,570 So finding the good book and also, I guess thinking about the value that that change might bring to the world and yourself at the same time. 328 00:37:37,570 --> 00:37:42,660 Yeah. We're supposed to be talking about you as a public intellectual. 329 00:37:42,660 --> 00:37:48,420 I was going to say not your father, my father, but I prefer to talk about Birmingham. 330 00:37:48,420 --> 00:37:59,130 Do you feel like a celebrity? No, I don't feel anybody celebrating me, but I do realise I mean, at one point in the mid 90s, 331 00:37:59,130 --> 00:38:09,000 somebody said that I was the most photographed and filmed poet in the world, but I'm not sure when the Internet started, 332 00:38:09,000 --> 00:38:12,930 but I think before the Internet and I could understand why they said that, because, you know, 333 00:38:12,930 --> 00:38:17,380 if you said the poet laureate, most people wouldn't know what he looked like a new name. 334 00:38:17,380 --> 00:38:23,880 But you didn't know people. I mean, I was probably the first poet that was on prime time television that was on Top of the Pops, 335 00:38:23,880 --> 00:38:30,210 you know, and that was also involved in political debates and stuff like that. 336 00:38:30,210 --> 00:38:37,020 So people would know me for different reasons. But I don't feel like a celebrity. 337 00:38:37,020 --> 00:38:43,410 I tend to shy away from doing things on media that have the word celebrity tagged onto them. 338 00:38:43,410 --> 00:38:50,580 I have done some and I'll be doing some in the future. But on every one of them, you can see it as a charitable cause. 339 00:38:50,580 --> 00:38:58,440 So I did Mastermind, which I made a complete fool of myself, but I'm done, you know, celebrity, antique roadshow and stuff like that. 340 00:38:58,440 --> 00:39:04,530 But that is just for the love and just for the raising money for for charities. 341 00:39:04,530 --> 00:39:08,760 They try to get me to go into Big Brother. They offered me a lot of money. I want it to affect me. 342 00:39:08,760 --> 00:39:15,450 I wouldn't do it. I tried to get me to go in the jungle. I wouldn't do it. And I just can't do that. 343 00:39:15,450 --> 00:39:23,300 But I think it's important. If you are a writer. 344 00:39:23,300 --> 00:39:33,960 That say something about. The conditions we live in and the way that we can be oppressed by certain systems, et cetera, 345 00:39:33,960 --> 00:39:41,700 et cetera, then you should be able to show your face and get involved in public debates. 346 00:39:41,700 --> 00:39:43,560 I would never call myself a public intellectual. 347 00:39:43,560 --> 00:39:51,960 I'm not sure if I call myself an intellectual, if an intellectual means a curious mind and trying to build a point of view on all these things. 348 00:39:51,960 --> 00:39:59,660 Yes, maybe. But when I hear real intellectuals, I mean, I. 349 00:39:59,660 --> 00:40:04,700 I'm close to worshipping Noam Chomsky and people like that. 350 00:40:04,700 --> 00:40:14,330 Christopher Hitchens, I was a friend of mine who I disagree with sometimes, but I just loved the way he would dig down and analyse things. 351 00:40:14,330 --> 00:40:21,020 And, you know, even when I disagree with him, I could see the logic of where he is coming from. 352 00:40:21,020 --> 00:40:24,620 When I think of myself against people like that, I think no way. 353 00:40:24,620 --> 00:40:29,780 But one of the things that I have that a lot of those cats don't have is real experience. 354 00:40:29,780 --> 00:40:35,120 You know, they may have ideas about policing in Britain or whatever. 355 00:40:35,120 --> 00:40:44,600 I've lost teeth and lost locks because the police and in Britain, you know, they may have theories about domestic violence and stuff like that. 356 00:40:44,600 --> 00:40:53,600 Well, I've seen my mother almost killed. I had to stab my father to save her life, you know, so that's what I have with a lot of those guys on her. 357 00:40:53,600 --> 00:40:59,420 And it's missing, I think, from a lot of public debates in Britain. 358 00:40:59,420 --> 00:41:05,290 Yeah. You know, when I teach poetry at Brunel. 359 00:41:05,290 --> 00:41:09,480 One of the things I tell the students is to use your experience. 360 00:41:09,480 --> 00:41:15,510 So what happens usually the girls start writing about the boyfriend poems and I think, 361 00:41:15,510 --> 00:41:21,180 come on now, dig deeper and then, you know, after a few weeks they get it. 362 00:41:21,180 --> 00:41:26,280 And I say to people, if you've had experience especially to be negative here, you can turn it into a positive. 363 00:41:26,280 --> 00:41:31,080 You're not studying Shakespeare. Actually, this is you study your life, you know, 364 00:41:31,080 --> 00:41:37,050 and the ones who find it difficult to the people that kind of are born with a silver spoon in their mouth have had no experience. 365 00:41:37,050 --> 00:41:41,550 And I remember talking to a student about this and he just he went, yeah, that's me. 366 00:41:41,550 --> 00:41:48,870 Every time I got a problem that he sends a helicopter and, you know, and I said, well, there's no reason why you can't find solidarity with people. 367 00:41:48,870 --> 00:41:55,080 Don't fake it, but you can still have solidarity with people who are suffering. 368 00:41:55,080 --> 00:42:04,880 Yes, so it's kind of I think there's an important in all our experiences, even if they are privileged to be honest about them. 369 00:42:04,880 --> 00:42:11,060 Just before we turn to questions, one last question first, you just want to BAFTA congratulations. 370 00:42:11,060 --> 00:42:17,780 And for our show that was bringing attention to up and coming talents. 371 00:42:17,780 --> 00:42:24,290 But and I don't make you feel old again, but there's a generation of folks are coming up somewhere in your mould and thinking, 372 00:42:24,290 --> 00:42:33,710 a you mentioned before, Loki and sort of folks who shout out that divide between politics, music, art, etc. 373 00:42:33,710 --> 00:42:42,530 And I'm just curious how you feel about that movement and do you feel inspired by this, folks coming up? 374 00:42:42,530 --> 00:42:47,780 Do you feel that you had a role to play in that in that space? 375 00:42:47,780 --> 00:42:56,640 Do you feel just generally and. Well, I mean, when I did Life in Rhymes, almost every poet would come to me and say, you know, I studied your poems. 376 00:42:56,640 --> 00:42:59,480 I read your poems when I was a kid. And you inspired me to do. 377 00:42:59,480 --> 00:43:04,130 I think it's great and it's great to do that programme because I feel like the grandfather, grandfather, 378 00:43:04,130 --> 00:43:11,750 if you like, of this form of what we used to call poetry, but now is generally performance poetry. 379 00:43:11,750 --> 00:43:19,910 And I think it's brilliant. Once upon a time, I don't know how old you are, but you might it might be difficult for you to get this. 380 00:43:19,910 --> 00:43:25,940 Once upon a time, it was like black and white. It literally was that it was like white and it was black. 381 00:43:25,940 --> 00:43:30,920 And Asians were seen as black and white. It was a political term. 382 00:43:30,920 --> 00:43:34,230 And they were gay and straight from. 383 00:43:34,230 --> 00:43:43,890 Now you've got, you know, bisexual, you've got trans, you got then you got Jamaican's and then you got Nigeriens and you know, 384 00:43:43,890 --> 00:43:49,440 and within the Asian community, you got the Hindus and the Sikhs and everybody got a separate identity. 385 00:43:49,440 --> 00:43:56,010 That amazing how it kind of pulls apart. In one sense, it was a lot easier back in the day, 386 00:43:56,010 --> 00:44:02,370 but I kind of enjoy listening to the complexity of it all and how they're kind of doing their negotiations. 387 00:44:02,370 --> 00:44:09,630 And sometimes they get angry, sometimes it gets tense. I've seen it with my own students and it's a bit like finkin. 388 00:44:09,630 --> 00:44:15,660 I used to think that all the LGBTQ plus people would be on the same boat. 389 00:44:15,660 --> 00:44:24,270 I was amazed. One day in my class of massive argument broke out because somebody said they were gender fluid or somebody and a gay person said, 390 00:44:24,270 --> 00:44:28,110 you know, stop sitting on the fence for arguments. 391 00:44:28,110 --> 00:44:33,150 You know, all the straight people go, oh, my gosh, what's happening over there? But it's interesting. 392 00:44:33,150 --> 00:44:39,810 And for us, it was. 393 00:44:39,810 --> 00:44:47,760 I don't want to say simpler, but there was just something a lot more sorry for repeating it, black and white about it now with a lot more complex. 394 00:44:47,760 --> 00:44:51,840 And I think this new generation deserves that. 395 00:44:51,840 --> 00:44:59,040 Because I knew people when I was growing up who were gay, who wanted to be trans, but they couldn't do it. 396 00:44:59,040 --> 00:45:06,770 Because of the way our communities were, when I listen to young poets now speaking about all kinds of things, 397 00:45:06,770 --> 00:45:17,830 that kind of it really does fascinate me. One of the things I do find really difficult is when. 398 00:45:17,830 --> 00:45:23,890 And I'm going to go a bit controversial now, but when people like Germaine Greer, who I've known for years, 399 00:45:23,890 --> 00:45:30,460 who kind of turned on a generation before me to feminism and then became a dear friend of mine, 400 00:45:30,460 --> 00:45:38,370 I kind of see how passionate she is about the issue when I see her being kind of not platform, you know. 401 00:45:38,370 --> 00:45:50,180 I do find that difficult and now I realise when you're doing interviews and things, you've got to be careful about every word you say. 402 00:45:50,180 --> 00:45:57,620 To complete this thing, but generally speaking, these new activists, poets, I love them, Lyndon Johnson said the other day in an interview, 403 00:45:57,620 --> 00:46:06,830 he said that is kind of like going into retirement and he doesn't really feel inspired or the need to write poetry anymore. 404 00:46:06,830 --> 00:46:14,490 I do. I feel completely inspired. But when the murder of George Floyd happened, I kind of sat back and forth. 405 00:46:14,490 --> 00:46:22,220 I'm not going to get involved in this. Was this is the new generation of activists coming forward with that new generation of activists. 406 00:46:22,220 --> 00:46:29,900 They called upon me and I was happy to step up, but I am inspired and do the other thing that really inspired me. 407 00:46:29,900 --> 00:46:37,370 Sorry, it is a very long answer to your question. But the other thing that really does inspire me is the fact that even five, 408 00:46:37,370 --> 00:46:41,690 four years ago when I was in the Black Lives Matter March, it was mainly black people. 409 00:46:41,690 --> 00:46:50,660 You know, now there's white people, there's all kinds of people in the marches and gay pride marches with always gay people. 410 00:46:50,660 --> 00:46:59,590 And there's all kinds of people. And I just love this kind of intersexuality, intersexuality both going on this. 411 00:46:59,590 --> 00:47:06,290 These people connect people connecting things. I find that really, really fascinating and inspiring. 412 00:47:06,290 --> 00:47:15,770 And it's black and white, I guess. You know, he spoke about it was it was simpler, but maybe it was making something complex, less complex. 413 00:47:15,770 --> 00:47:22,370 And that makes I think what it was was. It was. We really. 414 00:47:22,370 --> 00:47:29,140 Didn't have the luxury of. Saying, Well, I'm Jamaican and I'm Belgian and I'm Trinidad, 415 00:47:29,140 --> 00:47:35,030 because we were all as far as the races were concerned, we were all I'm tempted to use the [INAUDIBLE]. 416 00:47:35,030 --> 00:47:39,160 I'm not going to. But, you know, we wrote the [INAUDIBLE] and we wrote the P word, you know, 417 00:47:39,160 --> 00:47:45,340 and they wouldn't beat you a little less because you were a bit lighter skinned with me, you know, 418 00:47:45,340 --> 00:47:50,710 and if somebody was gay and being beaten because they were gay, there wasn't somebody analysing and saying, 419 00:47:50,710 --> 00:47:57,070 do we beat them hard because they're gay or is this person trans? No, they hated us all equally. 420 00:47:57,070 --> 00:48:03,250 So we were much more united and we weren't kind of breaking off into little groups. 421 00:48:03,250 --> 00:48:14,270 I think people have more space to do that now. But I still say that when you look at our main oppress the worldwide. 422 00:48:14,270 --> 00:48:21,800 They are the same people, you know, as it were here, and they know how to divide and rule us. 423 00:48:21,800 --> 00:48:27,410 So it's OK me saying I come from Jamaican background and I'm from Birmingham and I support Aston Villa. 424 00:48:27,410 --> 00:48:34,340 And you might be saying, I don't know where you come from. Somebody might be saying, I'm Nigerian or Indian and I support Tottenham or whatever. 425 00:48:34,340 --> 00:48:39,350 When it comes to fighting the racist, we must be united. Thanks. 426 00:48:39,350 --> 00:48:45,440 It's a perfect transition point to walk back in again now. 427 00:48:45,440 --> 00:48:50,690 So I've been collecting the questions that have been coming in and actually the first one I'd like 428 00:48:50,690 --> 00:48:57,560 to bring in to is from L.A. and it carries on directly from what you've just been talking about. 429 00:48:57,560 --> 00:49:00,890 And it's a question to both of you, which is, 430 00:49:00,890 --> 00:49:11,600 do you have any insights about how any people who want to fight racists can be better activists in the UK now than perhaps? 431 00:49:11,600 --> 00:49:16,820 You know, I was very, very moved when you talk about the 70s and 80s. I grew up through that, too. 432 00:49:16,820 --> 00:49:26,490 Is there? We got insights on how to be better activists now. 433 00:49:26,490 --> 00:49:35,760 A few years ago, I would be able to talk about taking to the streets and stuff like that, but they're trying their best to stop that. 434 00:49:35,760 --> 00:49:40,030 So there's a whole area of. And I find it. 435 00:49:40,030 --> 00:49:48,490 So much with young people now, with activism online and stuff, which I am just I'm just not clued into, I'm I'm still old fashioned in that. 436 00:49:48,490 --> 00:49:51,760 I mean, I do a bit on Twitter, but I don't really have to political debates then. 437 00:49:51,760 --> 00:49:58,550 I don't. I don't engage with it much, but I'm so. 438 00:49:58,550 --> 00:50:12,290 My old fashioned way of going to the streets, my kind of end up being illegal quite soon because it's becoming more and more illegal. 439 00:50:12,290 --> 00:50:15,770 The. 440 00:50:15,770 --> 00:50:25,670 Sorry for hesitating like this, but I've got to say, I'm a I'm a revolutionary, and I think that's I think all we are doing is I don't know who it. 441 00:50:25,670 --> 00:50:27,420 Well, some of it may have been Karl Marx. 442 00:50:27,420 --> 00:50:34,940 Somebody said that capitalism will eat itself, but that's no reason for us to sit back and say, yeah, yeah, I believe we've got to stand up. 443 00:50:34,940 --> 00:50:43,560 And we. And the future that. I want to see I actually don't know what it is yet. 444 00:50:43,560 --> 00:50:47,100 In other words, I'm not going to dictate. I'm not going to say anything. Well, I've got this point of view. 445 00:50:47,100 --> 00:50:52,470 I think the old ideas of Marxism and all this kind of you talk to young people about that and they got us old. 446 00:50:52,470 --> 00:50:59,880 The idea that workers are going to be the factory, they're going to put the tools are, you know, people to be on laptops now. 447 00:50:59,880 --> 00:51:04,890 And this is one of the problems. This is the problems that all of us have with people are not anarchists. 448 00:51:04,890 --> 00:51:09,330 They say, well, what's this world that you imagine? Well, we need to have a conversation about it. 449 00:51:09,330 --> 00:51:13,800 We need to do it together. It's not about imagining and then put it on you. And that's the point of it. 450 00:51:13,800 --> 00:51:21,750 And if you look at all the leading anarchist intellectuals in the world, people like Noam Chomsky, I wrote to Roy, what have they got in common? 451 00:51:21,750 --> 00:51:27,930 They don't want to be leaders, you know, so I'm a revolution. 452 00:51:27,930 --> 00:51:34,680 And like Bob Marley said, it takes a revolution to make a solution with too much confusion and it's just so much frustration. 453 00:51:34,680 --> 00:51:38,720 So I'm going to ask you the same question. 454 00:51:38,720 --> 00:51:48,900 I'm going to set you up partly because of the way your conversation went earlier as the younger generation for a young man. 455 00:51:48,900 --> 00:51:54,720 I'm not I'm not as big as I wish I was. And I am, as everyone who knows me, is very tech phobic. 456 00:51:54,720 --> 00:52:00,300 So I think the best way to talk about how things can be done now is along the lines of 457 00:52:00,300 --> 00:52:04,770 certainly and I think we need to get different groups of folks together to talk through it. 458 00:52:04,770 --> 00:52:06,060 I think it's you know, 459 00:52:06,060 --> 00:52:13,290 I think younger folks who are organising now very much need to learn the history and go back and see what was effective in the past. 460 00:52:13,290 --> 00:52:18,300 And at times it seems like that might not be happening. But that's because I'm old and of course, I'm older. 461 00:52:18,300 --> 00:52:20,940 Therefore, I think young people are doing very different things. 462 00:52:20,940 --> 00:52:29,610 And but I think there is space for for getting together and kind of coordinating and calibrating any kind of advocacy activism work that I've done. 463 00:52:29,610 --> 00:52:36,870 I've never, ever had an idea what to do. I have just been in situations I'm sure you have where you feel something has to be done right. 464 00:52:36,870 --> 00:52:41,670 And you try to get the right people at the table to talk about what can we do, what can we do with this? 465 00:52:41,670 --> 00:52:49,310 And so, yeah, I think everything begins with with conversation and and and planning collectively and along lines. 466 00:52:49,310 --> 00:52:55,410 Also what you said earlier, Benjamin, you know, I feel that the folks who are running things, that's exactly what they don't want us. 467 00:52:55,410 --> 00:52:58,920 That's what they fear. Yeah. Yeah. They actually fear it. 468 00:52:58,920 --> 00:53:02,490 Yeah. And that's why they're so desperate. That's why they want to stop us coming out on the streets. 469 00:53:02,490 --> 00:53:10,270 Yeah. That's why even when a woman is. Killed, I forget her name, Everett. 470 00:53:10,270 --> 00:53:19,420 Yeah, you know, there's forces that don't want women to get together because they realise that, you know, 471 00:53:19,420 --> 00:53:26,140 this could lead onto one thing, could lead onto another thing, could be done to another thing by very paranoid. 472 00:53:26,140 --> 00:53:32,830 But they are scared, petrified. And I feel like the rhetoric around the white working class is very much in this in this line, you know. 473 00:53:32,830 --> 00:53:41,800 Yeah. And in England, the powers that be have absolutely nothing to say to the white working class and have absolutely nothing in common with them. 474 00:53:41,800 --> 00:53:49,810 And in my opinion, they don't care about them at all. Yeah, but the only way to shore up their power is to do what they can to try to disconnect 475 00:53:49,810 --> 00:53:53,560 those individuals from the very people who live in their neighbourhoods, you know, their lives. 476 00:53:53,560 --> 00:54:02,410 You said it all in the poem that you actually in my on my neck were going out when you when you started reciting from the poem about them, not me. 477 00:54:02,410 --> 00:54:05,230 I mean, that's that's what that poem is about. 478 00:54:05,230 --> 00:54:11,950 And I wonder if if we could think again, this is a question, but it's one I have as well, which is what about noise? 479 00:54:11,950 --> 00:54:17,500 What about sound? What about rhythm? Can we just think collectively about the politics of that? 480 00:54:17,500 --> 00:54:23,050 Because you've in your discussion, you ranged over a whole range of different questions. 481 00:54:23,050 --> 00:54:34,030 But when one of the key things that you have as well as your experience is a particular relationship to noise, to sound, to rhythm. 482 00:54:34,030 --> 00:54:43,720 And I'm thinking, obviously, part of that is scriptural, it's biblical, it comes from a long, long wail of of of all sorts of different places. 483 00:54:43,720 --> 00:54:47,050 You know what knocked down the walls? Jericho Well, it was partly sound. 484 00:54:47,050 --> 00:54:53,260 I wonder if sound can do stuff, if rhythm can do stuff as well as if you like, as well as the content. 485 00:54:53,260 --> 00:55:03,870 Am I making sense here? Yes, I've been using music and poetry and sound vibrations, whatever I want to call it, or my creative life. 486 00:55:03,870 --> 00:55:06,870 And I have absolutely no doubt about the power of it. 487 00:55:06,870 --> 00:55:15,380 I mean, on a small level and on a bigger level, I remember being in a pub in Dublin and talking about the importance of. 488 00:55:15,380 --> 00:55:20,390 Creativity in education at the time was trying to get rid of focus on the reading, 489 00:55:20,390 --> 00:55:25,250 writing and arithmetic and that kind of literature and arts and plays and stuff like that. 490 00:55:25,250 --> 00:55:31,790 So I did a gig and I did this talk about it afterwards. Many, many years later, Nelson Mandela comes out of prison. 491 00:55:31,790 --> 00:55:33,410 I'm in South Africa. 492 00:55:33,410 --> 00:55:41,510 This guy comes up to me and he says, I remember that talk you did in Dublin about the importance of arts and creativity and education. 493 00:55:41,510 --> 00:55:44,850 And he said, I've taken that with me to my new job. And I said, What's your job? 494 00:55:44,850 --> 00:55:49,970 He said, I'm the minister of education. You know, for me, talking in a pub in Dublin. 495 00:55:49,970 --> 00:55:54,170 And I didn't know I was talking to the future minister of education to South Africa. 496 00:55:54,170 --> 00:55:59,060 But I'm sure you don't remember the Nicaraguan revolution. 497 00:55:59,060 --> 00:56:05,060 This is a revolution in Nicaragua, Sandinistas, where at the end of their revolution, 498 00:56:05,060 --> 00:56:11,340 they won power and they saw that most of their leaders were dead. 499 00:56:11,340 --> 00:56:17,550 But the people who were alive that really inspired the revolution were the writers and the poets and the musicians, 500 00:56:17,550 --> 00:56:21,090 and they all ended up in government. A friend of mine called us. 501 00:56:21,090 --> 00:56:25,650 Rigsby ended up being the mayor of Bluefields. You know, this is the government of poet. 502 00:56:25,650 --> 00:56:34,370 I mean, it's changed and something went wrong. But but the reason why they were able to do that was because. 503 00:56:34,370 --> 00:56:44,840 And the poets and musicians with their sounds and vibrations and their music and I think inspired the people and within the Palestinian struggle, 504 00:56:44,840 --> 00:56:53,870 is not alive in it anymore. But I would wish the great poet and at one point he would have said, I'm going to join the PLO wherever. 505 00:56:53,870 --> 00:56:59,470 And everybody said, no, no, no, no, there's enough people joining the PLO. We need you to write to inspire us. 506 00:56:59,470 --> 00:57:05,900 Yeah, yeah. I know the importance of of of literature and music and poetry. 507 00:57:05,900 --> 00:57:11,060 In Jamaica, no politician would go to elections without having a particular poet and musician on their side. 508 00:57:11,060 --> 00:57:15,740 And that's why they shot Bob Marley, because they refuse to take sides. Mm hmm. 509 00:57:15,740 --> 00:57:19,790 Malachi, do you want to say anything about this? Nothing major, this interview, Malachi's. 510 00:57:19,790 --> 00:57:30,560 Yeah, I thought it's strange to ask the questions about which is which if I mean, if, as Benjamin says, 511 00:57:30,560 --> 00:57:36,530 kind of poet can be inspirational, who apart from Benjamin, inspires you at the moment? 512 00:57:36,530 --> 00:57:42,530 Who are the poets? And I'll come back to you in a minute. I mean, who are you reading now as inspiration? 513 00:57:42,530 --> 00:57:46,220 Because you talked earlier about a book being an important thing in a person's life. 514 00:57:46,220 --> 00:57:53,510 What are the books? One or two books? Oh, gosh. If I could just say some really click on sound, which again disappears from what you said. 515 00:57:53,510 --> 00:58:02,140 And so I have to just look at a football match. Yeah. Unless I can turn a disparate group of people into a unified force for good and for. 516 00:58:02,140 --> 00:58:07,700 And that's the power of sound. You know, it's as simple as that and other things that I'm reading. 517 00:58:07,700 --> 00:58:12,470 Roger Robinson, I think, is a spectacular poet and a spectacular performer. 518 00:58:12,470 --> 00:58:16,070 I mean, you know, if you don't know him, people look him up. 519 00:58:16,070 --> 00:58:22,610 And Don Brand, a Trinidadian writer who I adore from Canada and then a champion. 520 00:58:22,610 --> 00:58:27,860 And of course. Yeah, I mean, there's so many I mean, as you said about people coming up in the excitement, 521 00:58:27,860 --> 00:58:33,200 so many voices now, I think, and who are doing just really, really incredible things. 522 00:58:33,200 --> 00:58:42,380 And Caleb Femi Raichel along and this whole new generation of poets and from all over the place who are. 523 00:58:42,380 --> 00:58:47,540 Yeah, I don't know, just just naming things, giving things the right name. 524 00:58:47,540 --> 00:58:54,080 I think so, Pottsy. They they they describe it in the way we say. And there's so many folks in that now. 525 00:58:54,080 --> 00:58:58,140 And going back to the, as you rightly said, 526 00:58:58,140 --> 00:59:06,830 a cinematic moment when the gun under your pillow and you and you come to London and you find your way into this gang of poets, 527 00:59:06,830 --> 00:59:14,150 um, with particular books or poets or voices at that moment that you had the Aha. 528 00:59:14,150 --> 00:59:20,150 Moment Malachi's just talked about. Well, like I said, I didn't really grow up in a house with books. 529 00:59:20,150 --> 00:59:32,100 No. Um. So for me, there was a kind of book, but it was called an LP. 530 00:59:32,100 --> 00:59:35,550 We listen to music. I mean, Bob Marley is an obvious one, 531 00:59:35,550 --> 00:59:44,400 but actually Bob Marley is like the commercial side of a thing as Pablo Moses Burning Spear Burning Spear sang about education all the time, 532 00:59:44,400 --> 00:59:49,380 the importance of education. Peter Toshiro became a very good friend. 533 00:59:49,380 --> 01:00:02,490 He was one of the original wireless and Macintosh Umali, of course, I thought Venezuela Judy Mahad, 534 01:00:02,490 --> 01:00:08,340 who was known as being one of Bob Marley backing singers, but she was a singer in her own right as well. 535 01:00:08,340 --> 01:00:17,760 So for me, it was really the music. When I started to really read the book that I read was the philosophies and opinions of Marcus Garvey, 536 01:00:17,760 --> 01:00:22,510 and I could hardly read it at the time, but I stole it from a library. 537 01:00:22,510 --> 01:00:27,210 I used to borrow it and I borrowed it week after week. And then one week I went back for it and it wasn't there. 538 01:00:27,210 --> 01:00:30,750 And the woman said she's taking it off the shelf and it was originally bound one, 539 01:00:30,750 --> 01:00:34,830 you know, it was like the old kind of leather bound and all that stuff. 540 01:00:34,830 --> 01:00:38,670 And she said, no, we're taking it off the shelf. You can have a new edition. 541 01:00:38,670 --> 01:00:45,180 But I looked at it and I saw it on the trolley literally being sent to be pulped or something. 542 01:00:45,180 --> 01:00:48,330 So I stole it. I stole it. And I took it. 543 01:00:48,330 --> 01:00:54,180 And I kept it with me for years. And then one day I was talking about it on television and I said, I've still got it. 544 01:00:54,180 --> 01:00:59,790 And the library wrote to me and said, You can have it. And I said, bring it back in this country for me. 545 01:00:59,790 --> 01:01:07,160 I still got it. But that book was about. He wrote that book. 546 01:01:07,160 --> 01:01:16,700 Saying that, look, if black people don't have a better sense of self and knowledge of their own history and a sense of where they want to go. 547 01:01:16,700 --> 01:01:24,020 They've taken away the change, but they will control us with their brains, we'll still be in a kind of slavery will be an economic slavery. 548 01:01:24,020 --> 01:01:29,870 And at that time, people, especially women, but also men, black people started late the skin. 549 01:01:29,870 --> 01:01:34,610 And with this kind of bleach stuff that they put on. And Marcus Garvey was completely against that. 550 01:01:34,610 --> 01:01:44,100 And that taught me or inspired me to kind of really not be ashamed of being black and understanding that we had a. 551 01:01:44,100 --> 01:01:48,310 A very important history that involved. 552 01:01:48,310 --> 01:01:57,940 Inventors and academics and thinkers and scientists and and all those kind of things that we were told or begun in in Rome or Greece. 553 01:01:57,940 --> 01:02:01,090 Mm hmm. I mean, again, 554 01:02:01,090 --> 01:02:10,990 I was found one of the really challenging parts of your discussion about the degree to which racism is sort of sanctioned within the academy now, 555 01:02:10,990 --> 01:02:19,600 and I'm not going to try and say that's not true. It's absolutely true. I suppose if we're leaning towards hope rather than despair, 556 01:02:19,600 --> 01:02:25,670 you might say that one of the other things that's happening within academic discourse now is. 557 01:02:25,670 --> 01:02:33,020 Kind of real digging down and discovery and rediscovery of black history is in the plural 558 01:02:33,020 --> 01:02:43,360 that go right back beyond Rome and appeared in the early in the early 16th century. 559 01:02:43,360 --> 01:02:54,790 Again, do you have thoughts on this particular moment as a as a kind of bending towards hope because part of your discussion in it was really painful, 560 01:02:54,790 --> 01:03:01,210 that bit where Monica was asking you, so is it worse now than it was before? 561 01:03:01,210 --> 01:03:07,930 And I don't want to say we have to be hopeful, but I'm wondering if if you've got a thought about. 562 01:03:07,930 --> 01:03:12,530 Yeah. Where we might go next year within the economy because you are now an academic. 563 01:03:12,530 --> 01:03:16,150 You like it or not. You don't want to say we have to we have to be hopeful. 564 01:03:16,150 --> 01:03:20,690 I would say we have to be hopeful. What our professors want us to do is give up. 565 01:03:20,690 --> 01:03:28,120 Yeah. They want us to be hopeless, you know, and this is something I've said before, and I don't mind repeating it. 566 01:03:28,120 --> 01:03:31,780 I have no scientific evidence to back this up. 567 01:03:31,780 --> 01:03:39,190 I read no papers to prove what I'm going to say, you know, but I just believe in the victory of good over evil. 568 01:03:39,190 --> 01:03:51,440 I believe we must overcome them. And we just have to if if we can't struggle on and see. 569 01:03:51,440 --> 01:04:00,680 Victory and just work towards it in whatever field we're doing that is kind of the colonialized in the academy or libraries or whatever, 570 01:04:00,680 --> 01:04:08,040 then we might as well just give up. We might as well just give up, we might as well listen to the racist and I don't know. 571 01:04:08,040 --> 01:04:17,500 Of course, they will go back to Africa. I'll go back to Birmingham or, you know, that's what they want us to do. 572 01:04:17,500 --> 01:04:22,710 Yeah, you know, the thing with the 70s and 80s when. 573 01:04:22,710 --> 01:04:28,290 Universities could get away with promoting racist intellectuals, all kinds of things, 574 01:04:28,290 --> 01:04:36,210 but that is that there wasn't all these forces I remember kind of reading about this rather than just thinking, 575 01:04:36,210 --> 01:04:38,760 why does everybody kind of respect his name so much? 576 01:04:38,760 --> 01:04:45,800 You know, and and it was almost like I remember talking to an African person about, you know, I got a Rhodes scholarship. 577 01:04:45,800 --> 01:04:49,670 You got to be grateful to the grateful. Mm hmm. 578 01:04:49,670 --> 01:04:53,370 I thought, no, no, we can say, you know, there's another way I get the scholarship. 579 01:04:53,370 --> 01:04:58,170 You want to go to anything that we can change it. And I'm just so glad we're having that debate. 580 01:04:58,170 --> 01:05:08,690 And it's not just about the debate I. I feel a bit lazy sometimes I think it is lazy sometimes when we just talk about the debate, we want action. 581 01:05:08,690 --> 01:05:13,670 Yeah, you know, and the young people who are fired up now want action. 582 01:05:13,670 --> 01:05:15,770 That's why they take statues down. Yeah. 583 01:05:15,770 --> 01:05:26,240 You know, and not only that, I did a every day for TV where about black people are putting statues up that represent us, all of us. 584 01:05:26,240 --> 01:05:31,220 Not just black people, but all of us. Yeah. You know, I've got hope, you know. 585 01:05:31,220 --> 01:05:34,910 I mean, I really it may not happen in my lifetime, 586 01:05:34,910 --> 01:05:41,150 but there are some great people much better than me who have done much greater things than me that didn't see the change in their lifetime. 587 01:05:41,150 --> 01:05:46,950 But we still appreciate what they did. Thank you, Your Honour. 588 01:05:46,950 --> 01:05:55,230 I don't think what he said, as so often we say what he said. 589 01:05:55,230 --> 01:06:02,540 We're now past 6:00 o'clock deadline and I think it's just about come to the end of the session this evening. 590 01:06:02,540 --> 01:06:10,100 There are one or two questions, but in a sense, they've they've been they've been answered really already in the discussion we've had already. 591 01:06:10,100 --> 01:06:20,960 I can't thank you enough, both of you, for this amazing really moving, but also really energising conversation. 592 01:06:20,960 --> 01:06:25,310 As you said, Benjamin, it starts with a conversation with somebody else. 593 01:06:25,310 --> 01:06:30,380 It starts through conversation. Obviously, it's got to turn from conversation into action. 594 01:06:30,380 --> 01:06:38,900 And indeed, as Pelecanos one of the frames of this discussion is the Art and Action Project. 595 01:06:38,900 --> 01:06:43,430 And I want to thank L.A. and Sandra Meyer and author Ruth Scobey, 596 01:06:43,430 --> 01:06:50,600 who's here for inviting torture to collaborate as part of this conversation and indeed this action today. 597 01:06:50,600 --> 01:07:00,860 I'd also like to thank the story museum where we are open again now, post pandemic or well post lockdown for hosting us so well today. 598 01:07:00,860 --> 01:07:05,420 And thank all those behind the scenes, both here in the Story Museum and the torch. 599 01:07:05,420 --> 01:07:14,360 Who made all this possible, thanks to to our viewers and listeners from all around the world for your comments and questions and in fact, 600 01:07:14,360 --> 01:07:19,520 your loyalty to the project that we're building here in Oxford, which is through torch, 601 01:07:19,520 --> 01:07:23,550 through the humanities cultural programme, through other parts of the university. 602 01:07:23,550 --> 01:07:29,400 And indeed, through engagement with organisations such as the Story Museum here in the city. 603 01:07:29,400 --> 01:07:33,540 So this is our last event of the Big Ten live event series for the time being. 604 01:07:33,540 --> 01:07:42,420 But we'll be back returning with what we hope will be an exciting programme of activity and seasons of different kinds. 605 01:07:42,420 --> 01:07:52,470 Later in the year, we hope that we can welcome you, the audience back then and if possible, as we've had the luxury of doing here today, 606 01:07:52,470 --> 01:08:02,610 that we might even have some real life in-person events for now from all of us, that torch, we wish you all a relaxing summer break. 607 01:08:02,610 --> 01:08:12,930 And most of all, many thanks to the two of you, Malachi and Benjamin, for a really amazing and inspiring conversation. 608 01:08:12,930 --> 01:08:19,860 Thank you. Thanks for tolerating me. You did well. I like what? 609 01:08:19,860 --> 01:08:35,043 Like to.