The place of poetry in contemporary Chinese and Igbo politics

Abstract

This article is a study of Chinese and Igbo political poems and their significance in the socio-political interaction of both cultures. It gives examples of their political poetry. The paper traces their different political situations that gave rise to the songs under study. To the Igbo, the article, explains the Aba women protest to the tax and land policies of the British Administration, subsequent independence giving rise to formation of political parties along ethnic bias in Nigeria. For the Chinese, it gets into the Cultural Revolution and the message carried along through poetry. This paper divides the political poetry into three categories, promotional, derogatory, and protest. It gives examples of each and from the enterprise; one can confirm the effectiveness of this poetry as a weapon of social construction, how poems aid politicians in conveying their messages to the electorates of the two different political ideologies. It studies the use of languages to communicate emotions and feelings in poems. It emphasizes that there are poems for different purposes that include that of political. The paper also discusses the three main political poems, promotional, derogatory and protest political poetries. It concludes that political poetry has the capability to build as well as destroy. Therefore, that political poems, which will propagate national policies such as War Against Corruption (in Nigeria), Population Control Policy (in China), then National unity, National Integration and war against terrorism all over the Globe, should be given more prominence and greater encouragement on radio and television programmes. Key words: Poetry, Chinese in politics, Igbo politics.