Ban the suits

Ah my friends, the poetry muse has deserted me. For now. She will return, I still have much poetry in this head, methinks. Anyway, welcome to my new blog category, ‘Bad Stuff’.

Banning the hijab. Hmmm. 

This post is inspired by reading about a movie (‘The war you don’t see’) made by John Pilger, a brilliant investigative journalist. Pilger said he had never had trouble because of anyone wearing a hijab, however he had many times been caused trouble by men wearing suits. Unjustified war, manipulation of financial markets etc.  So he says maybe we should ban the suit?

SO….

Last week, some people on an EasyJet flight out of one of the London airports stopped the flight from taking off, saying that one of the passengers had some suspicious arabic writing on her phone. She was wearing a headscarf. So was the girl next to her; they and the man they were with looked ‘distinctly Muslim’. Oh No!

Turns out the people thrown off the plane (and later re-admitted after an embarrassing hour or so being interrogated by the British Stupid Service) were British born and bred, nice kids at Uni in London, two sisters and their brother looking forward to a holiday in Italy. Racially, their ancestors were Indian. Britain is actually a multicultural society.  Some Anglo-Saxons/Celts/Picts and other assorted English tribes haven’t realised that yet, and think anyone looking ‘foreign’ has sneaked in through the fence to steal their turnips. Anyway, the complainers actually delayed their own flight by hours, having to wait on the tarmac, stewing in their stupidity. Ha ha.

Why did the ‘authorities’ take these morons seriously; it could only be that when they listened to their whining, they too became infected with stupid disease.

 And anyway, why is being muslim any different to being christian. Not all muslims are signed up members of Daesh, not all christians are paedophile vicars and priests.

And so to my own story….only the facts have been changed to protect the truth:

Last year I flew long-haul. Lady comes up to me, hands me a card with arabic writing on. I’m horrified! Call the chief steward.

‘This woman just handed me this arabic writing, I think it says allahu akhbar which means, “my muslim god is going to blow your ass up”. I demand you throw her off the plane!! She’s a terrorist, look she’s wearing a headscarf, what more proof do you need’.

The steward furrows his brow, ‘Actually sir, she’s the stewardess. She’s trying to give you the lunch menu. You’ll see it’s also in English on the other side, look. Rather than saying what you think it’s saying, it is actually extolling the delights of our crême brulée.’

‘So why is it in Arabic, and why is she wearing a headscarf, you haven’t answered that yet, eh? Is she or is she not a Muslim, and therefore a terrorist planning the destruction of the aircraft’.

The brow furrows deeper, ‘ Let’s try and break your question down sir, deal with it bit by bit. Firstly, your worst suspicions are true, the lady is wearing a headscarf because she is, in fact, Muslim. Is she a terrorist? If she is, she’s hidden it well, maybe saving it up for one big job. Perhaps this aeroplane sir, who knows. Maybe this will be when she finally comes out of the closet, declares her allegiance to Daesh, and blows us all out of the sky. Only Allah knows what is truly in her mind.

As to your first point, why is the menu in Arabic? Well perhaps it’s because this is an Arabic airline.’

‘No it’s not, it says Empire airlines on my ticket. A thoroughly British airline named after our once great British Empire that sent our armies out through the world to conquer and educate people and torture and kill the thoroughly bad apples who tried to stand in the way of good Christian Civilisation.’

‘Ah, look closer sir, I think you’ll see that says “Emirates Airlines” named after the Arab Emirates, a collection of Arabic States on the Arabian Gulf. You’re flying with a bunch of Arabs sir, Muslims to the last man and woman. And the worst thing is, sir, that I’ve just checked my watch and we’re going to be landing exactly at prayer time. This of course takes priority over everything, and means the Captain and co-pilot will have to abandon the extremely tricky task of landing the aircraft in order to assume the prayer position. Still you’ll find the “brace for crash landing” position illustrated in another of our little publications here, and now I’ve told you, you’ll have plenty of time to practice. Six hours actually. I’ll grant you sir this is one of the downsides of being a Muslim. I just lose count of how many aircraft we’ve lost this way. Still, maybe we’ll be lucky this time eh? Allah alone knows. Enjoy your meal sir’.

I did actually fly Emirates… brilliant airline and Dubai is the hub between Europe, middle East, Asia and Africa. Also, one of my great friends in Zambia is Muslim. In that village, Muslims live side by side with all sorts of different Christian sects. No-one gripes at anyone else for being different religion (except the shouting christians who reckon the louder they shout, the more likely that their particular god will hear them…. they get a bit of a bad press). Everyone accepts everyone else. And Western ‘cultures’ would call them less civilised. Enough said.