One of Britain’s greatest cultural ambassadors, Benjamin Zephaniah, passed away unexpectedly at the young age of 65. He was a poet, novelist, activist and actor who inspired millions of people all over the world and continues to do so today. Through the British Council, he visited India many times and preformed there to large audiences.
Born in Birmingham, to Afro-Caribbean parents, he had a very troubled childhood, and also went to prison many times and was beaten by the police often. Despite all this, he became a proud and compassionate vegan and wrote a very famous poem called ‘Vegan Delight’, long before Veganism became popular. In this poem, he lists a whole range of vegan dishes, with the first line being ‘Ackees, Chappatis, Dumplings and Naan…’ and ending with the line ‘And you ask me, what do I eat?’ showing how many varied dishes vegans can eat.
He was a multicultural poet, taking good things out of many different cultures and presenting them positively. Zephaniah fully understood the dark villainy of empire and the urgency of challenging its culture of superiority and violence at its very root.
I had the good fortune to know Benjamin personally long before he became very famous, and learnt a lot from him, including sharing the friendship with many other young Jains in the UK and the US. I travelled with him to Toronto in the 1990s and he became a very popular speaker at the JAINA convention there. One of his most important qualities was listening to all people and respecting them, and this made his appeal to ordinary people very strong.
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Zephaniah became a people’s celebrity, and a mentor for me when I started Young Jains, wanting to learn and celebrate the Jain culture, when there were few role models in the UK. He constantly encouraged me, and respected communities trying to protect their traditions, for he understood how priceless this is for society. He also understood very well the challenges of racism, and the vast ignorance of different cultures and beliefs in the West, where often we had to start by spelling the word JAIN, even when it is one of the world’s oldest living cultures.
Young people born and raised outside India have a significant challenge in learning and celebrating their own cultures. At school, culture is not on the curriculum, except perhaps as a specialist subject like literature or religious studies, where it is usually broken into bits rather than the whole that we experience it as in real life. Subjects like Economics have actively demolished culture and decimated ethics and morality.
When young people develop a positive respect for their own culture, they can feel inspired without having to constantly defend it. Role models like Benjamin Zephaniah, Michael Tobias, Naturopath Atul Shah, Reuben Thuku or Father Valles guided me in radical experimentation with cultural interpretation in the West and giving it fresh vigour and vitality through the eyes of young people. Today, I have completely rewritten the whole theory of finance by putting culture and wisdom at its heart. I refuse to allow the materialistic and liberal dogmatism of the West to suppress the beauty, living heritage and scientific vision that is Dharma.
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Rest in peace brother Benjamin Zephaniah. Your words, artistic gifts and legacy live on and will continue to spread far and wide. Search for him on Spotify or iTunes and he is alive, sharing deep wisdom in very few words.
Professor Atul K. Shah [@atulkshah] teaches and writes about Indian wisdom on business, culture and community at various UK universities and is a renowned international author, speaker and broadcaster.
