[Livia]

This isn't a new thing. Benjamin Zephanaya refused an OBE and wrote a poem critical of the queen. And he's allowed to do that because we are in Great Britain. And it's not just recent black poets who have a problem with Empire, poets have been criticising it for centuries... and they can. See Milton's and Wallers' pieces below.... and similar themes exist right up tot he present day.


John Milton - Paradise Regained - 1671

They err who count it glorious to subdue
By conquest far and wide, to overrun
Large countries, and in field great battles win,
Great cities by assault. What do these worthies
But rob and spoil, burn, slaughter, and enslave
Peaceable nations, neighbouring or remote,
Made captive, yet deserving freedom more
Than those their conquerors, who leave behind
Nothing but ruin wheresoe'er they rove,
And all the flourishing works of peace destroy;
Then swell with pride, and must be titled Gods,
Great benefactors of mankind, Deliverers,
Worshipped with temple, priest, and sacrifice?



Edmund Waller - A Panegyric to my Lord Protector 1655

To dig for wealth we weary not our limbs;
Gold, though the heaviest metal, hither swims;
Ours is the harvest where the Indians mow;
We plough the deep, and reap what others sow.