Eye of the storm

British poet Musa Okwonga

Credit: Creation Company Films

British poet Musa Okwonga has written a verse about academic freedom, especially for Index. Aimée Hamilton speaks to him about his influences and his views on the importance of allowing offensive views to be heard and openly debated on university campuses

“I KNEW IT WAS time to leave law when I found myself taking toilet breaks to go to the bathroom and start reciting poetry that I had written the night before,” said the British poet Musa Okwonga, who left a career as a lawyer 10 years ago to become a professional poet and journalist. He said although he always knew he would make the move to becoming a writer, he didn’t expect it to happen so quickly. “Those breaks got longer and more frequent, and then I started visiting the Poetry Cafe [in London] to read some of my work out loud. It was a whole new scene, one I’d never dreamed could exist. After that, I was hooked.”

Okwonga found poetry offered a means of expression that differed from other forms of writing. “What I love about poetry is the brevity, the immediacy of it,” he said. “You can convey something so powerful in just a few lines, just a few words. There are times when nothing but a poem will do – it’s like taking a snapshot of a moment, a photo composed of words.” Okwonga’s varied interests now have him splitting his time between working as journalist, musician, public relations consultant and author of books on football.

He believes that academic restrictions, violence and self-censorship are some of the biggest threats to free expression for writers and artists. He feels that people are self-censoring more because they fear retaliation. This leads to a culture, he believes, where people only tackle “safer targets”. He said: “A lot of the satire for example, even The Daily Show – and I love the Daily Show – doesn’t really go after targets that are all that dangerous. They’re quite cartoonish, and it’s quite safe.”

For his poem, A Necessary Storm, written for Index and published on the following page, Okwonga drew on a personal experience during his time at Oxford University, when the then leader of the far-right British National Party, John Tyndall was invited to speak. Okwonga says that as a black man at Oxford he felt he was in an under-represented group, and was offended that someone like Tyndall would be invited to speak.

Okwonga said although he was angry at the BNP being invited to Oxford, he later realised that the same freedoms Tyndall was given also gave him a platform and the opportunity to share his own views.

He explained: “As I’ve grown older I realise that that’s the same kind of freedom of speech that allowed me to go and speak at Edinburgh last autumn about historical revisionism in the context of Nelson Mandela and how people tried to rewrite his legacy. So without John Tyndall speaking at Oxford I don’t get to say what I want to say at Edinburgh.”

Okwonga maintains that it is important for offensive views to be heard and openly debated. “The thing about fungus, fungus will grow in the dark or the light, so you may as well expose it.”

A Necessary Storm

I support academic freedom of speech –

Even though, sometimes, it seems

There’s only one side talking:

Though the left-wing wants for airtime

Whilst the right wing’s raucous.

I support academic freedom of speech –

Just as I support the right to be appalled,

To call your views a fraud,

And, in terms polite or otherwise, to say “Up Yours”.

I support academic freedom of speech,

Even as I question why those who support regressive norms

Are most often given platforms.

I support this freedom, reminded that in this world

Where words are censored with steel,

Where arguments are charged down by bayonets,

Nothing causes so necessary a storm.

© Musa Okwonga