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Ignorance & Bigotry: An English Saturday Night
by Ian King
Last Saturday
found me in one of my frequent haunts, the Pub. This is a
fairly common occurrence in my life and I'm at my happiest
perched at the bar with drink in hand, chatting with friends
and putting lots of spare change in the juke box, forcing
people to listen to more Stone Roses and Jane's Addiction
than they want to I'm sure.
A friend
and I had "popped out" for a quick drink in the early afternoon
and, as usual, this turned into an all day session as around
8 more of our friends turned up over the course of the day
and evening. Now our Saturdays in the pub usually consist
of the following: Taking the piss out of each other, telling
lies to women, rounds of golf on the arcade machine and general
bullshitting.
My friends
and I are also great fans of the intoxicated discussion or
drunken argument and many an hour has been whiled away in
our local arguing about anything and everything while Phil
the landlord makes regular trips to our table to ask us to
stop shouting about Zombies or our plans to remake "The Count
of Monte Cristo" set in a brothel and called "The Count of
Prostituto".
Last Saturday
however we suffered the unwelcome addition of two gentlemen
butting into one of our discussions, unfortunately also a
common occurrence, and I was forced into a losing battle with
two drunken, ignorant bigots.
Foolishly
I marshalled my forces of reason and intelligence and pitted
them against the invincible powers of swearing, stupidity
and sheer volume. A saner man would have fled the scene but
I, heroic fool that I am, chose to stand my ground, like Custer
at Little Bighorn, a lone Neo facing a constantly multiplying
force of Agent Smiths.
I was
discussing with my friends how the French were cheeky buggers
for banning Muslim children from wearing headscarves in their
schools when I was assaulted with: "Fuck 'em! Those bloody
rag heads come over here they should do what we tell 'em!"
I turned
to face Oscar Wilde, prompted him to continue his fascinating
discourse and asked him exactly why they should do as they're
told and what possible offence could be caused by children
wearing headscarves in school or anywhere else.
"Well
if you go over there your bird (American translation: Girlfriend)
has to cover herself up don't she? If they come over here
then they should respect our culture!" (Pronounce this: Kultcha)
"And exactly
what is our culture?" I asked him. "The English don't really
have a culture as such, apart from watching men in shorts
kick balls around at the weekend and doing exactly what we're
doing now: arguing with each other in the pub. The Muslims
simply have strong religious beliefs and ask us to respect
that if we are in their country. If you don't like it then
don't go, simple as that."
He gulped
half his pint down while he thought about this and then completely
disarmed me with this stunning verbal riposte: "Nah that's
fucking bollocks mate!" As I mentioned earlier I really had
no chance did I? But I soldiered on regardless.
"Exactly
why is it bollocks?" I queried, motioning to Phil for another
Whiskey. I had the feeling I was going to need it. "Well"
he said, "Look at 'em over here, all they do is bang on about
how shit this country is and how we're all decadent or whatever.
I say if they don't like it they can go home!"
Now this
is partly true, I'll give him that. But it's not as though
it's only ever Muslims that complain about various aspects
of this country. I explained this to him, reminding him that
there were also a large number of non Muslim people that attended
demonstrations in our country. Now it was time for moron number
two to make his presence felt.
"Yeah
but they're allowed, they live here don't they."
"So do
the Muslims"
"Yeah
but they shouldn't be here in the first place should they?"
Jesus
wept I really wish I was making it up. "So your problem isn't
so much people complaining about this country but just people
who have the audacity not to be white or Christian?" Now part
of me actually expected them to say: "Oh yeah that is a bit
daft isn't it? Not to mention slightly racist, sorry about
that." Instead I got this:
"Yeah
fuck 'em! We're better than they are!"
I almost
gave up at this point but something inside me was determined
to break through their aegis of ignorance.
"How exactly"
I said patiently "are we better than them?" Now number one
returned in support after a brief foray to the bar for some
more lager.
"Well
we're a democracy aint we? Them lot over there aint much better
than the bloody Nazis are they?" I'm sorry to admit that I
sort of lost it at this point.
"Nazis!?"
I yelled "you've just stood here spouting some of the most
racist crap since Nuremberg and you're comparing them to the
Nazis?! What the fucking hell is wrong with you?!"
They both
sort of looked at each other with that "Hello, hello, think
we've got a bit of a nutter here eh?" Then moron number two
started to explain their viewpoint. "All we're saying mate
is that we have a lot more freedom in this country so it's
got to be better hasn't it?"
I'm sure
that most of you reading this immediately saw the hole large
enough to sail the Bismarck through in that argument. The
two cretins grinned at each other, certain I could have no
complaints about that little statement.
"You really
are stupid aren't you?" I said "What you're saying is that
we're better than they are because we're a democracy and encourage
freedom so we should celebrate that by not allowing people
to say what they think or for Muslim kids to wear headscarves
in schools? Just think about that for a second please!"
I almost
had them! I was so close to actually getting these dick-heads
to realise how stupid they were being. But then they got out
the big guns, the weapons of mass destruction. I'm sure this
particular conversational salvo should be banned under the
Geneva Convention but they flung it at me with gay abandon.
"Yeah
but all the Muslims are terrorists aint they? They all blow
everything up!"
There
it was, the coup de grace, what every reasoned argument is
powerless against: The sweeping generalisation. Without giving
me any time to rally against this onslaught, Moron number
1 dive bombed me with: "Yeah old George Bush has got the right
idea, shoot the bloody lot of them!"
Now I
feel I must apologise to everyone with an IQ that doesn't
read "Houseplant" because I let you all down. I just gave
up. I'm sorry I really am. I'll fight for freedom and human
rights as much as the next man but this was my Saturday night
and someone, obviously out to kick a man when he was down,
had just put Justin Timberlake on the juke box and that had
to be stopped.
And so
I left them there, triumphant, too despondent even to curse
at them a bit more. The worst thing was that they were both
looking so pleased with themselves, they'd won yet another
victory for democracy, won the war against terror in the pub.
I stood
at the juke box feeling like crying a river as Mr. Timberlake
was wailing at me to do. Part of me just refused to believe
that such, ignorant, bigoted, self-righteous war-mongers could
walk about unsupervised in a supposedly civilized country.
But then I remembered that both my country and yours had people
just like that in charge of them, not a particularly comforting
thought.
So I lost
but at least, I feebly consoled myself, I had tried. I went
back to my friends and started arguing about who would win
a fight between the world's strongest man and a bear, the
sort of serious argument I might stand a chance of winning.
Ian
can be found apologizing outside the local mosque or at ian.king@chelmsfordbc.gov.uk
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