The Marxist McGonagall | Conservative Heritage Times

I am indebted to the Unite Against Fascism website for some of the pleasantest few minutes I have spent this year.

In its report on a UAF demonstration carried out on 7th September, in defence of a chum who was convicted of assaulting a policeman, one of UAF’s leading lights delighted the United ones with readings from her compendious back catalogue of poetry.

Zita Holbourne is a busy lady, as may be gleaned from her breathless MySpace profile. She has already made notable contributions to English letters –

“former member of the Brothaman Poetry Collective, former co-host and resident poet of Nu Whirled Voyces and former member of the management board of Scribes UK”.

But her literary ambitions know no ceiling, nor any barriers:

“I write to inspire, heal, educate, inform, express, campaign.”

She has had many enthralling experiences, and met some great minds. She has performed at the Wales Diversity Awards, the TUC Black Workers Conference, on Colourful Radio and Sky Television’s Where It’s At. She has appeared “alongside world slam champion, Kat Francois”, at the “Love Music Hate Racism London concert at Broadway Theatre, Barking, London” (postcode unaccountably omitted) and at “From One Exile to Another – The Caribbean Connection @ the Poetry Cafe, London Performed at disPLACEment Festival @ the Arts Bar organised by Arts 4 Human Rights, London” (postcode @gain omitted). She is a member of the TUC’s Race Relations Committee and the Action for Southern Africa National Executive Council. As if these occupations were insufficient recommendation, she is

“currently developing Love Poetry Hate Racism in conjunction with Unite Against Fascism and Love Music Hate Racism”.

There’s a lot of Love in Zita, but she offers yet more largesse to the world:

“She has recently produced a collection of paintings – largely acrylic on canvass.”

She is deeply, deeply committed, to the extent that she does not trouble to distinguish between canvas and canvass. But then orthography ought not to obtrude into her “campaigining for equality, freedom, justice and democracy.” This mightily impressive CV would make any lover of poetry eager to learn something of her oeuvre.
The first poem bears the promising title, Until the far right are history – a title which would have been just as poetical even if she had used the more customary “is”. It begins with evil memories:

“My life’s been peppered sometimes drenched in racist attacks
My family came here to signs of no dogs no Irish no blacks
I grew up with racist abuse hurled in glee
Words that like a suture cut into me.”

Our sympathies duly engaged, she switches from doleful autobiography to determined ambition:

“My mental scars won’t deter
I won’t be fearful of what might occur
Can’t sit back and let history repeat
Got to stand up and defeat.”

For those who wonder what can be done, she provides specific instructions:

“Until we truly defeat
We’ve got to act urgently.”

Then she takes us down from this inspirational Mont Blanc, to immerse us in her family’s sad saga. Exiled in east London evokes a cold, hard country, where all the signs on all the closed doors bear the message already recalled above:

“From Caribbean shores
To England’s closed doors
Bearing signs of ‘No dogs no Irish no blacks’
Shouting out ‘Go back
To where you came from’
Assuming my home’s a land of sugar and rum.”

She turns her back on those shouting signs and assumptions to delve knowledgeably into genetics:

“Where I’m from is a mixture of
African roots, Caribbean trunk, Spanish, French and British branches…
I can’t go back without tracing my ancestral footprints
Without carrying out DNA tests to determine my foreparents”

There is however some heartening news:

“But best of all I’m a human being”

But this insight is denied to the man in the shop:

“’Where you from love’ man in the shop asked
I decided to have some fun and laughed
’East London’ straight faced I tell him
’Well I knew you were born ‘ere but like foreign’
He says matter of fact
I cast aside tact
Ask him ‘How can I be foreign if I’m born here?’
But as I turn away angrily in my eye there’s a tear.”

She is still far from her Erewhon, as described in the memorably entitled When you look into the future what do you see I see all races living in harmony – a work which shows her willingness to take risks with scansion:

“A land where institutional racism is not tolerated
And the glass ceiling stopping our career progression has been eradicated.”

One might get the impression that Zita has an idée fixe. Not so; in Resist and Rise, she displays her practical side, with a cool analysis of the fiscal situation.

“They’re ripping the clothes off our backs
In just one more attack on attacks”

Resistance is vital, because

“If we don’t fight back we’ll end up in the gutter
Feel like screaming at them but they’ll call me a nutter
Cart me away in a straitjacket with flashing lights
To a place where days are the same as nights
Throw away the key because of funding cuts
React with disapproval and tut tuts.”

In short, it’s

“Time to resist
Persist
Insist…
RESIST AND RISE
RESIST AND RISE.”

And with this final flourish of inflated fonts, the Marxist McGonagall rises magnificently from her keyboard, leaving readers amazed and asking themselves one question – with talents like these rallying to the UAF banner, who now in England can stand against them?