Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Do You Know Who I Am?

A dude with a 'tude, that's what Mohammed Asha was as far as Simon Plant could judge. He owned the little house in Newcastle-Under-Lyme that Dr. Asha rented. Condescending is how Mr. Plant described his model tenant. And worried about racism.

Dr. Asha was considered a brilliant student in Jordan, when he was in medical school. He was so studious, in fact, that his professor had to urge him to put down his books and go have some fun. Yet when Dr. Asha arrived in England to practice medicine, he was not accorded the same deference as he had garnered in Jordan. Hence, he saw racism. The English people he brushed up against saw a snob with his Arabic nose up in the air, looking down on them. Expected to have his arse kissed on a regular basis, that one. They saw a bad attitude and they chose to avoid him.

Mrs. Asha lived like a Jordanian woman, but the problem was, she was living in England, in a community with few Moslems. She walked about in a hijab, and hid upstairs when workmen came to fix things at the house. She saw racism. Her English neighbors saw a somewhat odd creature and they examined her and some probably felt sorry for her. That hijab was a mark of oppression, of keeping women under a man's thumb, and the ladies in the town felt that they had nothing in common with her so they didn't mingle.

Dr. Asha was thin-skinned, it was said by Jordanians who knew him. Didn't take kindly to criticism. Didn't control his short temper very well. So he went and threw a temper tantrum, trying to blow up a couple of nail and petrol filled cars, and when that didn't work, he really showed them. He drove a car into Glasgow Airport's main terminal and tried to burn the place down.

Do you know who I am? You are no better than anyone else when you move into a culture that is radically different than your own. Do you know who I am? You are someone so wrapped up in self-importance that you will not bend to fit into your host country. You are someone so conceited that you cannot endure being treated as an equal in a democratic society that is far less based on class than the place from which you came.

Do you know who I am? You are a terrorist, determined to change the world so that you will be perched on the top, because you believe that you are somehow special. Now, you are a common criminal, and you will be perched in a jail cell. In hindsight, wouldn't it have been better if you had stomped up and down or held your breath until you turned blue?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

listen the guy has not been charged. Why don't you wait and see what happens before jumping to conclusions. You are the one who will sound prejudiced if he is released without charge so just wait and see.

O hAnnrachainn said...

I am highly prejudiced against those who subvert a religion that is practiced by friends of mine. I am outraged by those who have engendered hatred that causes distress to people I care about.

Released without charge? Was he picked up on the motorway because his headlamp was broken?