We Refugees

• We refugees


  Inclusive pronoun showing that anyone can be a refugee
• Poem by Benjamin Zephaniah


  • Modern, contemporary poet
  • Born in 1958 to Barbadian postman and Jamaican nurse
  • Grew up in Jamaica and migrated to Birmingham, UK as a young person
  • Wrote the poem 'We Refugees' in 2000
  • Identifies as an outsider and has faced prejudice due to being a black man with dyslexia
• Benjamin Zephaniah's mother came to England on the Windrush ship
• The Windrush generation refers to Caribbean people who migrated to England in the 1950s to help rebuild the country after WWII
• Benjamin Zephaniah has faced significant discrimination as an outsider due to his dyslexia and being a black man
• Refugee


  Someone who has been forced to flee their home country due to war, persecution, natural disaster, etc.
• Reasons people become refugees


  1. Fleeing oppression, violence, and persecution in home country

  2. Escaping gender inequality and lack of basic rights

  3. Displacement due to destruction of natural habitats
• Refugees


  Can be anyone, not just a specific race or culture - the experience of being a refugee can universally affect people
• Benjamin Zephaniah: '"We can all be refugees, we can all be told to go, we can be hated by someone for being someone"'
• The poem 'We Refugees' gives a voice to refugees and creates empathy for their plight and suffering
• e 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
• the speaker states there you are told what to believe and that you are told reflects the realities of living a dictatorship we don't have freedom of seizure thought you're told what to think and if you push back against this you are either killed or you have to flee
• the speaker references how some countries young boys must grow beards so this is a reference to an extremely strict islamic custom that 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
• A great old forest which is now 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
• the speaker talks about the people are once new are not there now
• 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
• leaders can cause people to become refugees
• sometimes things like famine okay so no rain to bring forth food can cause people to leave
• we can we can we can we can all be refugees we can all be told to go give me hated by somebody
• i come from a beautiful place
• the valley of floods each year as well as the hurricane
• the hurricane tells us that we must keep you even on
• i come from an ancient place
• all of my family were born there
• i really want to live
• coming from a sunny sandy place
• i can't tell you what the price
• 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
• we can all be refugees
• it takes a day
• it just takes a handshake that's and also paper that signed
• we all came from refugees
• nobody just appeared
• nobody's here without a struggle
• why should we live in fear of the weather or the troubles
• all came here from somewhere