Heru: Barack Obama is Septimius Severus

Estradpoet, slam eller dub poet, är olika benämningar på poeter som reciterar sina dikter inför publik, ibland till musik. Ett par av mina stora favoriter i genren är dub poeterna Linton Kwesi Johnson och Mutabaruka Här i Uppsala är vi stolta över vår Kung Henry

För ett par dagar sedan hörde jag första gången poeten Heru född i Ghana men sedan länge bosatt i USA. Han arbetade i flera år som advokat men bestämde sig för att hoppa av och ägna sig åt poesi. Han presenterar sig själv i videon.


Inför årets presidentval i USA har Heru, som så många andra, skrivit en text om Barack Obama. Men han är ingen okritisk supporter av Obama. Tvärtom. I dikten Barack Obama is Septimius Severus: Change you can believe in riktar han hård kritik mot Obama och liknar honom vid den förste kjesaren i Rom av afrikanskt ursprung, Lucius Septimius Severus (145 - 211)



They say this is an historical moment.
So allow me to get historical inside of this moment.

My people, whatever you do,
Be for who, who be for you.

Lucius Septimius Severus
Oh ye Black Emperor of Rome
Barack Hussein Obama
Black President
Of the brave people's home

Lucius, born in Africa, this history is crazy
Septimius, became the Emperor of Rome in 193 AD
Severus, we had high hopes for you, every African man, woman and baby
But you became the metaphor of a weeping willow tree so sad, so shady
You went along with their brutality
You went along with their insanity
And disregard for non-Roman humanity
You rejected your own history
And adopted a Roman identity

Lucius Septimius Severus
Oh ye Black Emperor of Rome
Barack Hussein Obama
Black President
Of the brave people's home

Oprah Winfrey's best friend is influential, and her name is Gayle
All best friends are influential, and Barack Obama's best friend seems to be Israel
Even with glowing lights and make up, the ugly truth can never hide
A Black leader from South Africa recently went to Israel and said the treatment of Palestinians looks just like apartheid,
Some say your speech on race was a nice try
You've given the image that you're a very, very nice guy
and an oh so peaceful man
But I've read transcripts of your speeches,
And you want to bomb Iran
and you want to expand the war in Afghanistan
Man oh man
How will you explain to your daughters why Israel can have nuclear weapons, but Iran cannot,
How America can have Nuclear weapons but, but Iran cannot,
Even South Africa under white rule could have nuclear weapons, but Iran cannot
Without using double standards, giving an answer, you cannot

Lucius Septimius Severus
Oh ye Black Emperor of Rome
Barack Hussein Obama
Black President
Of the brave people's home

You did not change the imperial policies of previous Caesars
You created fools of those who were serious believers
You defended the interests of Rome and not the interests of your father's home
You prided your self as a Black Man who was a true patriot of Rome
You alone man became the most loyal Roman
History is a current event, so the past is the present and the present is the past
To you Rome came first and Africa came last
The perceived source of relief, is the source of our belief,
That's why we believed in you so prematurely
Two thousand seasons later, you'd think that we would mature see
You with just your smile and an oath to defend all things Roman,
In the autumn of 2008, will we still fall for seductive symbols and tokens?

Lucius Septimius Severus
Oh ye Black Emperor of rome
Barack Hussein Obama
Black President
The brave people's home

So the next time you go to Florida on family vacation to scuba in Key Largo
Look ninety miles to the south and explain why you kiss up to China , but support the Cuban embargo
Does that make your sponsors giggle?
Not a lot but maybe a little?
Will they quibble with this riddle?
What's worse, the fact that Bill Clinton had Monica Lewinsky?
Or that your foreign policy advisor is Zbigniew Brzezinski?
You know, one of the guys behind the trilateral commission
You know, one of the guys who believe that a lie is not lie if it's a lie by omission
You know, one of the guys who believes that the rule of law is a legal fiction
You know, one of the guys who is the prescription glasses to David Rockefeller's world domination blurry vision?
You know, one the guys who thinks double speak is perfect diction
You know, one of the guys who thinks rubbing shoulders with evil is good for friction?
But your supporters are electrified by you,
Galvanized by you
Hypnotized and Magnetized by you,
They say you're playing chess on a very high level
But, some of us don't play chess with the devil
We play a game called confess with the devil
No, some of us don't play chess with the devil
Yo, we play a game called stress with the devil
A continent of the oldest kings and the oldest queens demands your loyalty
The key to playing chess
Is to never lose your royalty
Would be first lady, it's not too late for you to check your mate

Lucius Septimius Severus
Oh ye Black emperor of Rome
Barack Hussein Obama
Black President
Of a self proclaimed brave people's home

Painted in staccato
Is the airbrushed image of the tragic magic mulatto
Kenya, Kenya, Ken-ya become President with elation and forget about grandma in a neo-colonized east African nation?
It's a hell of a situation when Dick Cheney is a family relation
What is the proper allegiance when you have the historical grievance of black people under siege
When a country stabs you in the back, and makes it a crime when you bleed
Abraham Lincoln is your hero, but the emancipation proclamation was a zero,
because there was no one it freed
A country whose fruits came from the extermination and experimentation of red and black seeds
Jeremiah Wright was right, he never lied
When he preached about the book Medical Apartheid
But you condemned his plead, cause you know and I know that Americans don't read
Is it possible to be a Patriotic American and a good world citizen?
Is it possible to be a good American and a high octane African?
In a land where the national past time is not baseball but deceiving, deceiving, deceiving
You may wake up and be seeing
Lucius Septimius Severus starring as Barack Hussein Obama
in a new epic movie called "Change You Can Believe In."

© Lyrics by Heru Ofori-Atta 2008. All Rights Reserved.

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