 Hello and welcome to this summary of everything you need to understand if you're studying the poem We Refugees by Benjamin Zephaniah which is included in edXcel's poetry anthology titled Belonging okay so it's one of the major poems that explores the theme of belonging and alienation. Now if you are studying this poem it's really important to be aware of contextual factors in other words things surrounding the time of the poem's writing and also things related to the author of the poem so Benjamin Zephaniah specifically which will likely influence some of the themes explored within this poem. So before we get into analyzing each of the different stanzas in depth let's look at contexts that you should be aware of relating to Benjamin Zephaniah himself and also of course other factors that influenced him. So first the always remember Benjamin Zephaniah who is a modern he's a contemporary poet. He was born in 1958 to a Barbadian postman so his dad was a postman and he was from Barbados okay as well as a Jamaican nurse who was his mother okay so he is Caribbean in heritage and descent. Now he grew up both in Jamaica however he migrated so he emigrated to Birmingham which is a major city within the UK when he was young and he wrote this particular poem We Refugees in 2000 okay that's also when it was published. Now it's really important to bear in mind that Benjamin Zephaniah has always identified himself as being an outsider indeed even in the field of academia he's also been an outsider don't forget he's also a black man so of course there is also prejudice that he has faced throughout his time okay so remember that Benjamin Zephaniah has dyslexia and this affected his performance in school. He went to school at a time when dyslexia was not really well recognized and this consequently led him to leave school when he was just 14 years old and then he moved from Birmingham to London in 1979 at 21 and published his first poetry collection in 1980 okay so he's very prolific and he has been on the scene for a while okay. Now in terms of Zephaniah and when it comes to traveling and emigrating okay because that's one of the major themes that's illustrated within his poem We Refugees his mother came to England on a boat a really famous boat called the Windrush okay so hopefully you've heard of the Windrush if you haven't it's basically a time following this end of the Second World War when Britain was in huge need of manpower it was in huge need of lots of people to come in and help rebuild the country as a result of all the losses it faced during the war and it called on countries especially Caribbean countries within the Commonwealth and there was one particular ship a huge ship called the Windrush that was sent to different parts of the Caribbean primarily Jamaica and other bits of the Caribbean and lots of Caribbean people migrated during this period in the 1950s to England in order to work and to fill these roles that were vacant and needed filling okay so his mother did come as part of that Windrush generation okay. Now the final thing to bear in mind is Zephaniah himself has faced significant discrimination as an outsider so as I've mentioned he is an outsider from an academic perspective he suffers from dyslexia okay but of course he sees this as something that actually gives him a very unique perspective okay and in fact you should read a text that he's written called Young and Dyslexic you've got it going on which we've done lots of analysis on so do make sure you check out our analysis video on that however in spite of that he does recognize that his dyslexia does make him somewhat of an outsider in the academic field this coupled with him being a black man also has made him really face lots of prejudice and so this poem We Refugees shows that he empathizes with outsiders people looking down on him out due to factors that he cannot control and people really seeing him as something that is negative a scourge in society and he challenges these stereotypes and he challenges this perspective especially when it comes to refugees within We Refugees but of course this perspective is all the more clearer to him because he knows what it's like to be an outsider okay so as I mentioned context is really really important when it comes to understanding this poem and the contents of this poem so when you're writing an essay about this you do need to be aware of this information which I've put here in the mind map but of course you also need to know the poem in detail okay so now what we're going to do is we're going to analyze each standard within the poem and look at a language form and structure that's used by Zephaniah within We Refugees so let's read through this poem We Refugees I come from a musical place where they shoot me for my song and my brother has been tortured by my brother in my land I come from a beautiful place where they hate my shade of skin they don't like the way I pray and they ban free poetry I come from a beautiful place where girls cannot go to school there you are told what to believe and even young boys must grow beards I come from a great old forest I think it's now a field and the people I once knew are not there now we can all be refugees nobody is safe all it takes is a mad leader or no rain to bring forth food we can all be refugees we can all be told to go we can be hated by someone for being someone I come from a beautiful place where the valley floods each year and each year the hurricane tells us that we must keep moving on I come from an ancient place all of my family were born there and I would like to go there but I really want to live I come from a sunny place where tourists go to darkened skin and dealers like to sell guns there I just can't tell you what's the price I am told I have no country now I'm told I am a lie I'm told that modern history books may not forget my name we can all be refugees sometimes it only takes a day sometimes it only takes a handshake or a paper that is signed we all came from refugees nobody simply just appeared nobody's here without a struggle and why should we live in fear of the weather or the troubles we all came here from somewhere so this poem takes the perspective of a refugee it actually gives them a voice and it really shows us that literally anybody can be a refugee so this poem is also really powerful in educating those who assume that refugees you know they've somehow engineered their futures to be the way they are all they have of the options it shows that lots of us can be vulnerable to this particular situation and of course it creates a lot of empathy for the reader for the plight and the suffering of refugees so let's analyze each of the stanzas within this poem in more detail make sure you pay attention to the name of the poem we refugees because what this does is this inclusive pronoun especially the word we makes us realize that anybody can be a refugee it puts us in this vulnerable position and it shows and universalizes the experience of being a refugee okay so what Benjamin Zephaniah is trying to show is literally anybody can be a refugee it's not restricted to race it's not restricted to culture people can be simply unlucky and find themselves in this terrible position now in the first verse the speaker begins by stating I come from a musical place the first person pronoun I really is powerful in creating a personal tone and making us as readers instantly connect with the speaker also the verb come implies what is often a traumatic process of going to a new country migrating to a new country after fleeing one's original home country is really powerful and also of course as I mentioned traumatic they state they come from a musical place now the adjective musical is important in highlighting how melodious and beautiful the home that the refugees left behind can be okay so they're not there out of choice they've left a place that they really loved it was melodious musical but they had to go also the repetition of my brother in the third and fourth line of the first stanza emphasizes how absurd it is that people from the same country can turn on each other so refugees tend to also run away from their countries due to tyrants terrible leaders dictators who ethnically look like them but torture them and mistreat them also the violent verb tortured suggests that many refugees tend to flee their countries because of brutal violent tyrannical leaders in the country moreover in line number one I come from is also repeated in line number one of stanza two and the first line of stanza three okay so this repetition shows that this poem is meant to educate readers on the variety of reasons and circumstances where people have to flee their countries and become refugees and the second verse we learn that this particular speaker comes from a beautiful place and the assonance of A in a beautiful place reveals how much a speaker misses their home country also they state that even if where they come from is beautiful it's a place where they hate the shade of masking they don't like the way I pray the ban free poetry so here hate don't like and ban these negative terms show how the speaker's home country is oppressive and brutal the reasons why they're now a refugee also the reference to skin pray and poetry reveals that someone's ethnicity religion and the intellectual beliefs can cause them to become a target just like that they can have to leave their own country again this is what this is showing is this creating empathy for us as readers we realize that there's a lot of things that happen outside of somebody's control that lead them to be a refugee they haven't chosen to be the status also the reference to ban free poetry so the juxtaposition of the words ban and free amplifies the contrast between these ideas now in the third stanza the speaker talks about other instances why people become refugees so there's some countries where girls cannot go to school and this declarative centres reveals gender inequality and in fact this is one of the reasons why for instance Malala Yusuf Sy is so famous because she was championing the right of young girls in places like Pakistan and Afghanistan to go to school but that led her to have to flee and become a refugee then the speaker states there you are told what to believe and the you are told reflects the realities of living a dictatorship we don't have freedom of speech or thought you're told what to think and if you push back against this you are either killed or you have to flee furthermore the speaker references how some countries young boys must grow beard so this is a reference to an extremely strict islamic custom that the that exists in certain countries where young even young boys have to follow a very strict idea of islam and sometimes this can be very repressive in the next stanza the speaker talks about a great old forest and which is now a field now the contrast in the relative size of a forest which is huge versus a field shows how other people become refugees due to the destruction of their natural habitats either by natural disasters or even companies that come in and cut down forests for commercial reasons for example to sell logs but then this robs these people of their homes okay so this has now given us another reason why some people become refugees then the speaker talks about the people are once new are not there now so there's ambiguity here because it could be that the people that the speaker once knew have escaped just like them so obviously they've left their home or they may have died as a result of losing their homes in the following stanza the speaker states we can all be refugees the collective pronoun just like in the title we refugees shows the speaker reflects that becoming a refugee can literally happen to anyone it's just merely a matter of luck and again what this meant to do is make us empathize and also sympathize with refugees then this statement is interesting because it breaks the structure of the poem so before the previous stanzas began with our come from but now it's started with we can all be refugees so this breaks the structure of the poem straying also from the quatrains okay so the full line stanzas previously to a stanza that's eight lines long and it doesn't start with our come from also we learned that of course leaders can cause people to become refugees okay so the speaker talks about mad leader and remember a leader is supposed to be somebody who's sane it's supposed to be somebody who thinks things through okay so there's dissonance created with the adjective mad because this is not a quality we're associated with leadership and again what this is showing is really terrible leaders can come into power and this forces some people to have to run away from their countries then they mention how sometimes things like famine okay so no rain to bring forth food can cause people to leave okay so litteration of f in fourth and food reveals that famines and natural disasters can cause people to become refugees then the speaker states and repeats we can we can we can we can all be refugees can all be told to go we may hate to buy somebody so the triple repetition of we can culminates into a powerful message that being a refugee is literally a right last resort it's not something that anyone can anticipate definitely they don't choose to be in that position then the reference and repetition of someone here really humanizes refugees in our eyes okay so it goes from you know what we sometimes hear in the news of all these bunch of refugees and sometimes this can be quite dehumanizing now we really start humanizing them and understanding the different reasons why people become refugees in the next stanza the speaker talks about i come from a beautiful place and this is a repetition of the first line of stanza two and the first line of stanza three and this reiterates the speaker's pride in the home country so they actually love the home that they had to leave which is even more sad then they mentioned the valley of floods each year as well as the hurricane so the semantic field of natural disasters in floods and hurricanes also shows how random freak accidents random freak natural events cause people to become refugees their whole lives change because of a flood or a hurricane and then they become homeless and they have to flee then the hurricane tells us that we must keep moving on so this is interesting because nature is personified as speaking to the inhabitants telling them to leave in the next verse we learn that the speaker comes from an ancient place and the assonance of a hair in an ancient place reveals the place that the speaker fled from is filled with lots of beautiful and powerful history and this is an allusion to countries in the Middle East especially which had ancient civilizations like Iraq Afghanistan which sometimes in all of the confusion and of course also the chaos sometimes that war can bring all of this against destroyed also the speaker talks about how all of my family were born there so this is extremely emotive because the speaker has to leave a place that the whole entire ancestry came from and start a fresh summer else again here we see that refugees don't want to be refugees they don't want to have moved but they are forced to the repetition of the word there reveals that they yearn to go back to their motherland but it's too dangerous to go back and they also state I really want to live and this declarative sentence is sad it's poignant because they don't have a choice of going back and the next stanza they speak of coming from a sunny sandy place and the siblings here suggest the home they left behind is beautiful and exotic and they state this is where tourists go to dark in the skin so the home country is a tourist resort and the tourists who go there are actually really ignorant of the disasters and the problems the turmoil happening in that country also it's interesting this reference to how the tourist dark in skin but also other dealers so for example arms dealers sell the guns there because there's a contrast between people going to the country to tan versus others going to buy illegal things like arms guns which shows that the country that this person is left is really lawless there's no rule of law then the speaker just says I can't tell you what the price okay so and of course this is referring to the guns and what this is showing is a country that they've left behind there is no moral compass there everything both legal and illegal can basically be obtained in this country for a fee showing that the country the left behind is really corrupt then the speaker states I am told I have no country now I'm told I'm a lie I'm told modern history books I'll forget my name here the repetition of this passive voice I am told suggests ignorant people in his host countries the country that they're now living in are lecturing him about where he's come from even if he knows more about the home country and what this is showing is sometimes refugees are robbed of their voices they're told what to think they're told who they are and this sometimes shows how powerless refugees can sometimes feel also the repetition of the first person pronoun I shows how powerless and voiceless the speaker feels as a refugee because they're robbed of their autonomy to speak up for themselves the reference to modern history books is powerful because it suggests this set of adjectives suggests that western media sometimes creates its own bias narrative about the country that refugees come from in the following verse the speaker then states we can all be refugees and this repetition of this line in stanza five breaks the structure of the poem again and it shows that becoming a refugee can literally happen to anyone it's just a matter of luck then we learned that it takes a day and the assonance here of a shows country can literally fall apart rapidly and then suddenly people are refugees there it only takes a handshake that's an also paper that signed so the reference to handshake and just a piece of paper that sign this is very innocuous actions okay innocuous means like the action happens it doesn't seem like a big deal however these innocuous actions have huge consequences of lives of millions in our country so just takes a handshake between two leaders or a piece of paper that signed and suddenly a bunch of people find themselves you know excluded from this country and they have to flee then the speaker states we all came from refugees so the collective statement we all links to the previous anaphora of i came and it's binding the speaker and the reader because it makes a share in their personal history as well as reflect that we can be easily in the same position as this refugee person then they tell us nobody just appeared and so here what they're doing is a challenge and simplistic ideas that people tend to attach to refugees that suddenly you know something happens and these refugees appear maybe on the coastline of a new country and here what they're showing is actually it's not as simple as just that the speaker then states that nobody's here without a struggle and the powerful verb struggle lends power and agency to the refugee they're just not this passive mass of people that get defeated by terrible events actually struggle against these events they do something about it then they ask and why should we live in fear of the weather or the troubles and this rhetorical question is important because it shows we aren't powerless regardless of our circumstances we can overcome just like how refugees overcome by fleeing somewhere and this is part of taking back our power then the speaker states all came here from somewhere and the words here and somewhere is interesting because the non-descript nature of these two words lead to the poem being applicable to literally anybody so anyone around the world can become a refugee and we shouldn't derive them we shouldn't criticize them for wanting to leave a terrible past in order to create a better life so that's it i want to come to understand this poem i hope you found the analysis as well as the contextual explanation useful in understanding this and thank you so much for listening