NIGERIAN NOVELIST, BEN OKRI, CELEBRATES UK LABOUR LEADER FOR CITING HIM AS AN INSPIRATION IN HIS SPEECH

Nigerian poet and novelist Ben Okri has celebrated United Kingdom’s Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in a new poem titled “A New Dream of Politics.” The Man Booker prize winning writer wrote the poem after Jeremy Corbyn cited him as an inspiration in his speech during the Labour Party conference. “It was the great Nigerian writer Ben Okri who perhaps put it best: ‘The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love.” Jeremy said during his speech. In the new poem, which is a salute to idealism, and a rejection of “cynics and doomsayers given exclusively to the Guardian, Okri did not name Corbyn, but comes close to conjuring a vision of a bearded angel in a tweed jacket. According to the Guardian, the two men have never met, and Okri was in the south of France finishing a script when he heard about the speech. In an interview with the Guardian, Ben Okri said “We need politicians who read widely, who read the classics, the masters, but who also read contemporary writers, who read across colour, across race, across class. If we don’t have politicians who read widely, how can we ever get to a new politics?” A new dream of politics – A poem by Ben Okri published on the Guardian They say there is only one way for politics. That it looks with hard eyes at the hard world And shapes it with a ruler’s edge, Measuring what is possible against Acclaim, support, and votes. They say there is only one way to dream For the people, to give them not what they need But food for their fears. We measure the deeds of politicians By their time in power. But in ancient times they had another way. They measured greatness by the gold Of contentment, by the enduring arts, The laughter at the hearths, The length of silence when the bards Told of what was done by those who Had the courage to make their lands Happy, away from war, spreading justice And fostering health, The most precious of the arts Of governance. But we live in times that have lost This tough art of dreaming The best for its people, Or so we are told by cynics And doomsayers who see the end Of time in blood-red moons. Always when least expected an unexpected Figure rises when dreams here have Become like ashes. But when the light Is woken in our hearts after the long Sleep, they wonder if it is a fable. Can we still seek the lost angels Of our better natures? Can we still wish and will For poverty’s death and a newer way To undo war, and find peace in the labyrinth Of the Middle East, and prosperity In Africa as the true way To end the feared tide of immigration? We dream of a new politics That will renew the world Under their weary suspicious gaze. There’s always a new way, A better way that’s not been tried before. Ben Okri is just one of Nigeria’s writers whose works have been a source of inspiration for many. In 2013, Beyonce Knowles featured Chimamanda Adichie, whom she called her favourite feminist, in her song “***Flawless”. The song samples Chimamanda’s popular TED speech titled “We should all be feminists.”