In Britain, saying coconut is racist, supporting genocide is PC

Nine months into Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Britain’s South Asian community remains in despair over the UK’s complicity in arming and abetting Israeli war crimes.

We’ve been betrayed by the entire political establishment, but none more so than by those who look like us.

Both sides of the so-called political spectrum – Labour and the Conservatives – have scrambled to Israel’s defence, with right-wing Tory MPs like Priti Patel, previously fired from the cabinet for a secret trip to Israel, Suella Braverman, who labelled pro-Palestinian protests in London “hate marches”, and current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, all repeat offenders and all of South Asian heritage.

How can we feel “represented” by South Asian presence in Parliament when the ruling party supports Israel’s accelerated genocide in Gaza and relishes sending refugees to Rwanda?

Clearly they’re not like us. When you’ve built your political career on being callous and heartless, you simply don’t care. Instead, they proliferate a climate where South Asian and Black dissent is criminalised, and pro-Palestinian activism is vilified.

How to divert attention from genocide

Like hundreds of thousands of other Londoners, in November 2023, British school teacher Marieha Hussain attended a pro-Palestinian protest in the centre of London.

To help vent her frustration, Hussain held up a placard which showed two coconuts on the floor with Rishi Sunak and then-Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s face on it.

Who could have predicted the insanity that followed?

The term ‘coconuts’ has, for decades, been widely used by the Black and South Asian communities to refer to those who reject their heritage and align instead with the dominant Euro-centric worldview — and has since transcended working-class POC politics and culture.

For example, in 1989, reggae artist Macka B’s song Coconut challenged those from the British Caribbean community who weren’t proud of their heritage and who looked down on their own with British arrogance.

The artist sings: “Some of them outside Black but it’s white they want to be, coming like a chocolate bounty.”

The late beloved poet Benjamin Zephaniah also wrote in his poem The Race Industry: “The coconuts are getting paid. Men, women and Brixton are being betrayed.”

But it isn’t just a post-colonial phenomenon. The betrayal and identity crisis of Black and South Asian figures goes back to the British Raj.

For example, South Asian women in positions of power or married to wealthy Englishmen were called memsahibs – white women of status - referencing their proximity to whiteness.

Calling someone a ‘coconut’ is therefore a linguistic expression that exposes both the discourse between POC and white communities and how colonisers manufactured self-hatred within the colonised.

This has been reflected in satire and comedy of the “children of the empire” since the 1980s, from Goodness Gracious Me to The Real McCoy. But it seems the soon-to-depart Tory government, laden with denial and self-disdain, wants to banish the term forever.

Under unprecedented legislation, Marieha was arrested and charged with a "racially aggravated public order offence" for her coconut placard and, for the past eight months, has been dragged through the UK courts over a sign.

It’s funny. The UK right often bemoans the “snowflake generation” but, when it comes to Palestine, it’s they who throw their toys out of the pram crying foul.

Last week, outside Westminster Magistrates Court, on the first day of Marieha’s trial, a group of activists from several grassroots organisations showed solidarity with the pregnant Muslim mother, holding the same placard in satire. Some even carried actual coconuts to show the absurdity of the whole debacle.

They too were arrested and London’s Metropolitan Police confiscated the brown ‘offensive’ coconuts laid on the pavement outside the court. Proof, if any more was needed, of the insanity of the UK’s security apparatus.

The attempt to equate a word used by non-white communities to discuss issues within our circle with actual racist terms is beyond ridiculous. We cannot lump violent language with critical language used by ethnic minorities – it sets an incredibly dangerous precedent.

Throughout this election, we’ve seen the mainstream political parties persistently dog-whistle Black, South Asian, and Arab communities. Just last week future Prime Minister Keir Starmer threw the Bangladeshi community under the bus by saying that they could be deported at the drop of a hat.

It’s this kind of statement that should be challenged and criminalised, not Black and South Asian communities who use language to critique their own communities for promoting violent, and now genocidal, policies. It is also not the British police’s responsibility to over-police South Asians for being critical of British South Asian politicians for allying with white supremacy and Israeli apartheid.

It’s no secret that Suella Braverman, Rishi Sunak, and those like them are far, far removed from working-class migrant community struggles.

Playing the victim, policing POC language and arresting protestors is the real crime here, not the South Asian diaspora in the UK who see the struggles of the Palestinians in their history, who take a stand against Israeli occupation, and demand their government do better.

Shareefa Energy is a working-class South Asian award-winning poet, writer, activist and creative campaigner challenging British state violence. She is the author of the poetry collection Galaxy Walk, endorsed by the late Benjamin Zephaniah.

She was the Youth and Community Coordinator for stop and search in London from 2016-17. She is an advocate against deaths in British custody and a long-term supporter of the United Friends and Families Campaign. 

Her poetry has been featured on BBC The One Show, Channel 4 and ITV. She's facilitated creative writing, poetry, storytelling and performance workshops internationally, from Palestine to Sierra Leone with schools, universities, academics, in prisons and immigration detention centres, with survivors of domestic violence and with those impacted by state violence. She is a long-term supporter of the Palestinian struggle for liberation and justice. 

Follow her on Twitter: @ShareefaEnergy

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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.