Today, a proud black man called Toyin Agbetu had the decency and self belief to stand up and confront the establishment. He walked forward and interrupted a service at Westminster Abbey by denouncing the Queen and Tony Blair a disgrace, and yelling that they should be ashamed of themselves. I couldn’t believe my eyes, it honestly doesn’t get any better than that, apart from when Buckingham Palace caught fire just before the Golden Jubilee!
Piety was in his element. A big church with religious leaders in flowing white robes, him at the front with the aristocracy and a sun tan. Only a roof separating him from the almightily judgment of history, or the fiction onto which he places so much of our faith. The old dear sits opposite mumbling to herself on autopilot in the same outfit she always wears, just a different colour. Her buffoon hangs around looking as old as he’s always done, half stunned, half dead. Those two will never die.
As Africa wallows in an unbreakable cycle of poverty and debt, Piety and his white middle class friends mark the abolition of slavery with tokenism. The fact that they choose to do so in a church is indicative of the outrageously deluded nature of religion, worship and belief. It’s proper church stuff, the idea that a preened service full of dignitaries will somehow provide some solace to history before all the worshippers get driven back to their obscene wealth. The whole scenario is about as Blair as it gets, and about as far removed from Africa as Comic Relief or Lenny Henry.
It reminds of Piety’s self important piece about Africa being a stain on the conscience of the world. More words, more tokenism. He must have been dreaming of that little number to the Arch Bishops soothing words, that was before Toyin Agbetu dared to spoil the party.
And as the man of the moment was lead from the church, Piety winced and did that telltale sideways head movement that people do when things get fucked up. The rest of the congregation, seemingly selected on the basis of being ugly, looked on disgust, which is slightly ironic given the occasion. The plan was spoilt, it was Agbetu’s day. And when he pointed to the sun tanned suit behind the high alter of smug, and told Piety that he should be ashamed of himself, Toyin Agbetu was spot on.
Respect.