 Hello and welcome to our video summarizing everything you need to know about the poem Nothing's Changed by Tatam Kulu Afrika. My name is Barbara and in this video I'll go over the poem beginning with some context about the poet himself before going into detail on what each of the stanzas mean. So let's get started. Now Ismail Tatam Kulu Afrika Joubert was born in Egypt as Muhammed Fawad Nasif, turn Arab father and a Turkish mother on the 7th December 1920. His parents relocated to South Africa in 1923 where they died from Asian flu leaving him orphaned at the age of two. He was then taken care of by friends and family before being given over to a Methodist couple who renamed him John Carlton. In 1964 he embraced Islam and changed his name to Ismail Joubert before settling in District 6 in South Africa. When District 6 was destroyed in 1967 he launched a militant Muslim organization known as Al Jihad. Al Jihad was not only opposed to but fought against apartheid. It was also a welfare organization. Ismail Joubert and other members of Al Jihad joined Um Konto Wasezwe so MK the armed wing of the African National Congress the ANC in the early 1980s. As a result of his political activities he was arrested and charged with terrorism in 1987 and he spent some time in prison and he was then banned for five years and forbidden to write. Now on a separate note if you'd be interested to know a little bit about South African history and also a bit about apartheid do check out our other video on South Africa which goes into detail on this. However going back to context now during his time in MK he was given the name Tatamkulu Africa which means grandfather of Africa a name that he officially adopted as his own. Tatamkulu Africa then used his new name to write whilst he was in contravention of his banning orders in other words he disobeyed the ban to write and he carried on writing. Now moving on to the poem Nothing's Changed. This poem talks about the rampard apartheid system in District 6 near Cape Town in South Africa and explores the racism. The ironic title brings to light how after apartheid nothing's changed but the physical appearance of District 6. Nothing's Change expresses the speaker's anger towards the racists especially the whites and it reveals the experience of turning back to South Africa after the system of racial separation called apartheid has been overturned. Now when you read through the first tanzer of Nothing's Change it shows the irritation and anger of the speaker when he says that the irritating stones that click under the feet of the poet themselves create a hard irritating sound which is an example of onomatopoeia. The speaker then says there's an attidiness all around and this is increased more by the spreading weeds all around and in this tanzer the poet is shown as walking across the wasteland that he knew since his childhood and the destroyed District 6 which fills the poet full of anger and irritation. Words like stones, seeding grasses, cans, weeds are images that the poet uses to make this poem really lively and realistic. The poem does to some extent have a friendly and amiable tone initially and the opening has a series of monosyllabic words however they can be quite percussive and this helps in building up an imagery in the opening lines in which the poet really sets up the appearance of the wasteland which is District 6. With the use of the first person the poet also takes us into his own world. In the last line of the first stanzer the narrator uses another poetic device such as amiable weeds whilst the use of words like clicks and crunch are the examples of onomatopoeia that I've referred to. Now in the second stanzer the speaker brings about a change in the poem's tone using the two-word title District 6. This stark statement at the very start of the stanzer familiarizes the readers about what the poet is going to talk about and this stanzer also recognizes the place as District 6 which is recognizable not only by a signboard but by an instinct to quote from the poem my feet know and my hands. In fact every part of the poet's body seems to recognize District 6. The repetition of the word and in lines 12, 13, 14 and 15 shows the speaker's growing anger. Also the frequent use of punctuation establishes this sense of anger. Note that this tone of anger that the speaker expresses through imagery of body parts is against the establishment of the restaurant that has been constructed among the debris of District 6. The construction of this restaurant which destroys District 6 also shows the supremacy of the whites over the blacks and this stanzer ends with a sense of anger at and to quote from the poem the hot white inwards turning anger of my eyes which depicts that the speaker is full of anger due to the his rooted hatred of whites and also his hatred stemming from how the whites have oppressed the blacks in South Africa. Now in the third stanzer the speaker takes his reader to a brash restaurant which is full of upmarket art cuisine with a guard at the gate post. This restaurant can be easily recognized as a place for whites only which means no black is allowed to get in there. This very scene of the restaurants and the warnings written here angers the speaker he calls it brash which is a personification of something almost lurking or hiding in the grass or weeds and its squads. The height of this speaker's rage is increased more when they find a guard at the gate post of the restaurant which means that people sitting inside the restaurant feel like they need protection by using this guard and this really irritates the speaker who wants to break the restaurant brash with glass. In the fourth stanzer which is quite brief it speaks a thousand words through just these two lines. It sheds light over the racism that's still inherent in South Africa and when the narrator sees the construction of the restaurant over the debris of District 6 he says that there's no sign yet we still know where our place is in society and where we belong. The apartheid signs might have gone now that South Africa is a democracy but the speaker knows that a man of mixed awe of darker skinned race would not be welcome in this upmarket restaurant in other words he knows where he belongs not in the upmarket restaurant but in the working men's cafe which is just down the road. In the fifth stanzer the writer looks through the window and the key feature of the stanzer is colour imagery mostly the white colour imagery all that is white the crushed ice, linen, the rose, the restaurant the poet uses all of this imagery to put emphasis on just the whiteness of the restaurant against a black backdrop and it stands out and reinforces the notion that black people are just not welcome here the part of the background that to be ignored not to be embraced. Yet the single rose in the table is not white which symbolizes the red blood of all human beings. The metaphor of a flower decorating a table also symbolizes the blood that's been shed during South Africa's struggle for freedom and of course struggle against apartheid. In the sixth stanzer the speaker describes a contrast between the working men's cafe down the road and the restaurant on the other side. He says that in the working men's cafe the blacks themselves have to carry the food with them the cafe has plastic tables there are no serviettes as people wipe their fingers on their jeans they spit a little on the floor and it's in the bone. In all the pleasant and uncivilized scenario of the man's cafe is a total and complete contrast to the restaurant which is quite posh and fully embedded with all sorts of amenities. Now in the final seventh stanzer the speaker moves away from the scene reverts back to being a boy again and there's a sense of smallness about him. It's as if the whole experience has left him feeling really inadequate. He wants to throw a stone or a bomb at the glass which represents his anger at the whole scene and this is the rage that still exists in the mind of the poet and very likely in the mind of many black South Africans.