This peice was featured in Issue 1 of Muntjac Magazine
4TH WORLD – “Subpopulations existing in a First World country, but with the living standards of those in a third world, or developing country.” – read An introduction to the 4th World by MerriCatherine and Kiksuya Khola
(make maps out of tha ashes – tha ancestors guide us)
i can tell u what we remember:
a friend recounting how they watched riots on the news at 10 years old
asked their mum if they could go
they had a lot to be angry about
and we have a lot to be angry about
mark duggan made london, liverpool, nottingham, bristol and gloucester burn
niggas who brought babylon 2 its knees
and they remember
and they’re afraid
its why no matter what u vote these parties all hate immigrants
its why you’ll see TSG vans at every rally
and citizenship don’t mean anything when they can remove it
the easiest way 2 find out if you’re british is tha colour of your skin
babylon law codifies white civility in stone
and whoever diverges knows how cruel a state can be
council estates turned penitentiaries
mosques declared training grounds for jihadists
but when it comes 2 terror
what is terror if not august race riots and bibby stockholm
if not PREVENT harassing children
And 1 in 5 BLK mothers dying
And BLK kids are 4x more likely 2 be sexually assaulted strip searched
because NHS and Met Police aint 2 different from EDL
white supremacy coats every breath we take on dis island
but think back
think back
think back
2011 – 1985 – 2001 – 1981
every flame is purifying
1976 carnivals they made pigs scatta by chanting soweto
time 2 make pigs scatta by chanting harehills and moss side
by chanting brixton and barking
chanting peckham and palestine
tower hamlets and haiti
croydon and congo
postcolonial peoples
chanting world black revolution
and fourth world uprising
fourth world(?)
third world oppressions as a first world problem
every european country with a black underclass
babylon and that muslim underclass
Tha kweer niggas that know refuge in the crevices of the third world/swimming around tha murky banks of britan
those living and breathing in peripheries of tha belly
tha estates that be
concentration camp/holy ground/slave revolt ground zero all in one
every school in the ends a pipeline 2 prison
tha ppl called terrorist or criminal
we be fourth world – tryna end tha first world
trapped inside internal colonies
while our motherlands celebrate independence(?) days
postcolonial peoples who reject white saviours
the only gods we know are our hands
solidarity is awkward but tha yutes know it best
we be tha ones that makes devils scatta be it 2011 or 2024
tha real anti-fascists – tha trotskyists could neva
we be fourth world – tryna end tha first world
the only one we know
poet of da soil is a Black queer muslim poet and abolitionist, you can read more of their writings at substack.com/@poetwav