nov 13, 2003 - Benjamin Zephaniah publicly rejects OBE
Description:
In 2003, he was offered appointment as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) but publicly rejected the honour, stating that: "I get angry when I hear that word 'empire'; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers, brutalised".Added to timeline:
Date:
nov 13, 2003
Now
~ 22 years ago