The Cowardly Poet - an encounter with an Islamophobe
I just can't stand them, he says,
while standing there,
white teeth, white skin, blonde hair.
Decked out in designer clothing,
something checked out from the nearest Prada,
or Dolce & Gabbana,
or Gucci. Something Italian.
Maybe Armani.
He says, so you know these Afghanis...
I say, what?
But I think I know where this is going.
My blood starts boiling,
but against my better judgement I stay.
I pray this isn't going where I think.
He says, they're invading you know. They're taking over.
A dairy on every corner. New suburbs packed with foreigners.
My prayer unanswered. Maybe God's on his side.
Does that mean I get Allah?
I mean I’d rather logic now, but I wouldn’t shun a cosmic power.
Islam, he says, perhaps sensing my religious musing,
is a force of hate and warfare.
Why, just the other day at the Four Square,
Muslim on a lawn chair,
in turban and long beard,
shouting at his son in a foreign tongue,
spewing hatred no doubt.
I mean it’s not difficult to figure out.
If they come to our country, they should speak our language.
I pause.
How, I think, did he make this link between
violent, intolerant imagery,
and the fact that this man spoke differently.
I didn’t have to wait long.
That’s how they’re infiltrating, he says.
Syndicating and militating.
They’re ready and waiting,
translating their hating.
But wait –
It’s not just us that they hate.
They’re oppressin’ their women,
dressin’ them in black.
Ban them from tanning,
a blatant attack on human rights.
I’m right, he says.
What have they to hide?
I’m beside myself here,
it’s a matter of pride.
And while it’s at hand, I just don’t understand
why they come here,
with their gripes and their grousing,
espousing their own views,
refusing to follow our good Christian values.
Ungrateful’s what they are.
After all, if it wasn't for the West,
they’d be so far behind us.
Try as they might to malign us,
it’s what has defined us.
Our progress in arts, in education,
the economy, science, our civilisation.
Why if it wasn’t for us, he wagers,
the Middle East would be stuck in the Middle Ages.
Stop, I shout.
Or rather I want to shout.
I mean to shout.
I just don’t quite get it out.
I mean well.
I just don’t yell.
I don’t actually even say anything.
I mean I want to.
I want to say stop.
I want to say –
There’s a chink in your argument, I think.
That haphazard collection of weak links,
strung together with some slung together aspersions,
perversions of general common sense.
Your ranting tirade - a charade,
built on ignorance and intolerance.
Yeah, you heard me. You’ve stirred me.
First of all,
if you’d done your research,
got down from your perch,
stepped away from your unbecoming, mind-numbing church,
built on mental incapacity,
the audacity to say,
in your gentlest fundamentalist way,
we know best – when in fact, you know nothing.
For Islam, in fact,
is, at its core, a religion of peace and moderation.
Not hate and devastation.
Show mercy and patience, forgiveness and love.
That’s from the Qu’ran. Have you heard a lot of
those verses?
Versus the scary ones.
Yeah, some of those scriptures may seem a bit crook.
Have you taken a look at your Holy Book?
Matthew 10:34, 35, 36
No, but that’s out of context – Luke 14:26
Numbers 31 – six to 18.
Have you seen,
Exodus 22. 17?
And the chapter before it, verse 15.
Comparatively the Koran seems serene.
See, it seems to me unreasonable
to deem one irredeemable,
to write them off as deranged,
when your own beliefs are just as strange.
And yes. There are Muslim fanatics.
But take a look at your own -
Fred Phelps. Terry Jones.
Eric Rudolph. Use Google.
It’s brutal what he did. In the name of your God.
How’d you like to be tarred by that brush?
And while we’re at it –
those Muslims you say – who learnt so much from us –
you might be surprised to learn what they taught us.
Think arts.
Think education.
Think economy; science.
Think civilisation.
Yeah. We’ve been here before.
And regardless,
what of one’s choice to choose what to believe?
To choose who to worship?
Choose what they perceive?
And if one so chose to choose a god named Allah,
is that so much worse than a god named Jehovah?
Or a god named God?
Or no God at all?
What gives you the right to overrule?
You’re a bigot and a fool.
I want to say that.
But I don’t.
I bite my tongue,
conserve my air,
quietly recite the Lord’s Prayer,
which admittedly is kind of ironic given the situation.
“Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil,
for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory,
forever and ever amen.”
But as I walk away in underplayed defiance,
I muse whether my silence is just another example of good men doing nothing.
Did my quiet in fact imply that I was politely slightly racist?
I mean, he was the one who was in the wrong,
but did I play along?
My lack of action,
an infraction of civil rights?
Was my civility in fact complicity?
My docility in fact implicitly a mandate?
A show of support?
And had I had spoken up,
might he have woken up?
A new kind of salvation,
from polarization,
from the glorification of narrow-minded dogma.
I turn back.
But he’s gone. I wander home.
I pen a poem.
And now forever I’ll be known,
as the cowardly poet.
I just can't stand them, he says,
while standing there,
white teeth, white skin, blonde hair.
Decked out in designer clothing,
something checked out from the nearest Prada,
or Dolce & Gabbana,
or Gucci. Something Italian.
Maybe Armani.
He says, so you know these Afghanis...
I say, what?
But I think I know where this is going.
My blood starts boiling,
but against my better judgement I stay.
I pray this isn't going where I think.
He says, they're invading you know. They're taking over.
A dairy on every corner. New suburbs packed with foreigners.
My prayer unanswered. Maybe God's on his side.
Does that mean I get Allah?
I mean I’d rather logic now, but I wouldn’t shun a cosmic power.
Islam, he says, perhaps sensing my religious musing,
is a force of hate and warfare.
Why, just the other day at the Four Square,
Muslim on a lawn chair,
in turban and long beard,
shouting at his son in a foreign tongue,
spewing hatred no doubt.
I mean it’s not difficult to figure out.
If they come to our country, they should speak our language.
I pause.
How, I think, did he make this link between
violent, intolerant imagery,
and the fact that this man spoke differently.
I didn’t have to wait long.
That’s how they’re infiltrating, he says.
Syndicating and militating.
They’re ready and waiting,
translating their hating.
But wait –
It’s not just us that they hate.
They’re oppressin’ their women,
dressin’ them in black.
Ban them from tanning,
a blatant attack on human rights.
I’m right, he says.
What have they to hide?
I’m beside myself here,
it’s a matter of pride.
And while it’s at hand, I just don’t understand
why they come here,
with their gripes and their grousing,
espousing their own views,
refusing to follow our good Christian values.
Ungrateful’s what they are.
After all, if it wasn't for the West,
they’d be so far behind us.
Try as they might to malign us,
it’s what has defined us.
Our progress in arts, in education,
the economy, science, our civilisation.
Why if it wasn’t for us, he wagers,
the Middle East would be stuck in the Middle Ages.
Stop, I shout.
Or rather I want to shout.
I mean to shout.
I just don’t quite get it out.
I mean well.
I just don’t yell.
I don’t actually even say anything.
I mean I want to.
I want to say stop.
I want to say –
There’s a chink in your argument, I think.
That haphazard collection of weak links,
strung together with some slung together aspersions,
perversions of general common sense.
Your ranting tirade - a charade,
built on ignorance and intolerance.
Yeah, you heard me. You’ve stirred me.
First of all,
if you’d done your research,
got down from your perch,
stepped away from your unbecoming, mind-numbing church,
built on mental incapacity,
the audacity to say,
in your gentlest fundamentalist way,
we know best – when in fact, you know nothing.
For Islam, in fact,
is, at its core, a religion of peace and moderation.
Not hate and devastation.
Show mercy and patience, forgiveness and love.
That’s from the Qu’ran. Have you heard a lot of
those verses?
Versus the scary ones.
Yeah, some of those scriptures may seem a bit crook.
Have you taken a look at your Holy Book?
Matthew 10:34, 35, 36
No, but that’s out of context – Luke 14:26
Numbers 31 – six to 18.
Have you seen,
Exodus 22. 17?
And the chapter before it, verse 15.
Comparatively the Koran seems serene.
See, it seems to me unreasonable
to deem one irredeemable,
to write them off as deranged,
when your own beliefs are just as strange.
And yes. There are Muslim fanatics.
But take a look at your own -
Fred Phelps. Terry Jones.
Eric Rudolph. Use Google.
It’s brutal what he did. In the name of your God.
How’d you like to be tarred by that brush?
And while we’re at it –
those Muslims you say – who learnt so much from us –
you might be surprised to learn what they taught us.
Think arts.
Think education.
Think economy; science.
Think civilisation.
Yeah. We’ve been here before.
And regardless,
what of one’s choice to choose what to believe?
To choose who to worship?
Choose what they perceive?
And if one so chose to choose a god named Allah,
is that so much worse than a god named Jehovah?
Or a god named God?
Or no God at all?
What gives you the right to overrule?
You’re a bigot and a fool.
I want to say that.
But I don’t.
I bite my tongue,
conserve my air,
quietly recite the Lord’s Prayer,
which admittedly is kind of ironic given the situation.
“Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil,
for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory,
forever and ever amen.”
But as I walk away in underplayed defiance,
I muse whether my silence is just another example of good men doing nothing.
Did my quiet in fact imply that I was politely slightly racist?
I mean, he was the one who was in the wrong,
but did I play along?
My lack of action,
an infraction of civil rights?
Was my civility in fact complicity?
My docility in fact implicitly a mandate?
A show of support?
And had I had spoken up,
might he have woken up?
A new kind of salvation,
from polarization,
from the glorification of narrow-minded dogma.
I turn back.
But he’s gone. I wander home.
I pen a poem.
And now forever I’ll be known,
as the cowardly poet.