When The First Slave By Shabbir Banoobhai Analysis

In the following essay, I will be analysing the poem When the first slave was brought to the Cape written by Shabbir Banoobhai in 1998. Shabbir Banoobhai is a South African poet. He was born in in 1949 in Durban. Shabbir Banoobhai’s poetry is spiritual, political and personal and he has written about both personal and South African social issues, from a Muslim perspective. Shabbir was part of apartheid and he shared the same fate as the larger black community of South Africans and his poetry reflects on the struggles the faced. ("Shabbir Banoobhai." KZN Literary Tourism)
The Dutch colonized in the Cape in the 17th Century and they brought Muslim slaves, from Indonesia, with them. In this poem, the main topic is slavery and it is handled in
Even though, the content of the poem addresses a serious matter (the matter of slavery), but it is addressed in positive a and hopeful way. Slavery is a system of one person being the property of another person and slavery is a serious and horrible issue in the world but through the eyes of the slave, slavery is seen in a different light because the slave still feels free even when he is constricted by the bounds of slavery. The tone of the poem has different contributing factors. The slaves positivity can be seen in the poem in stanza 1, with the words “eternal beauty” (Banoobhai line 3) this is the purity of the poem, seeing the beauty in things and believing it will never be lost even as time and circumstances change and “affirmed” (Banoobhai line 5) which is a reassurances that the beauty will never be lost and the hope the slave has of being free will never be lost either. In stanza 2 the slave says that one day he will climb to the top of the mountain and that reinforces his optimism and hopefulness cause he believes that he will make it out and be on top of the world (figuratively). The optimism can be seen in stanza 2, “am as free” and “am as tall”. Because the poem is written in present tense and indicates that the slave still has an owner, but the slave has freedom within and he/ she can still appreciate the beauty of the foreign country even under the circumstances that he/ she have been placed. The poem also indicates determination, determination of the slave to one day overcome the hardship of slavery and finally be free. The poet shows this determination by the slave by repeating phrases like “I will and “my voice