Divided Loyalties
Those who are already fans of William McGonagall will find much to savour in this poem. Those who aren’t familiar with his gloriosity should go here for a Sunday treat.
I found this poem in the comments to this by Henry Porter in The Observer, on the US’ public’s self-censorship about Israel:
Who Says?
O come all ye Fundamentalists, ye Peoples of The Book
(meet a lady – don?t forget to lift your hat )
visionaries outward bound without an inward look,
forbidden to have notions where it?s at,
forbid to quiz yourselves for fear foundations might be shook:
you have a spark of godly reason lurking in some nook,
a divinely sanctioned question that will get you off the hook:
?Who Said God Wrote That??
Who stumbled down the mountain with Tablets of a Law
(eye for eye & tooth for tit-for-tat.)
?Thou durst not bear false witness about what the butler saw!?
(You can read it in some stupid Murdoch blat.)
?Found this moral code, have no idea what it?s for,
the signature fell off – the mark of Hammurabi?s paw? –
promulgating justice – as an antidote to war??
(Ah. Well maybe God Wrote That.)
And now the Chosen People with their temple on the hill
sit around all day & chew the fat
?Iron Wall? Let?s build one to enforce our Iron Will.?
they bluster like some arrant Tory prat.
?We?ll run the river our way & monopolise the mill –
we?ll cut down all their olive trees, they haven?t got the skill.
Our tribal sacred scripture gives us leave to maim & kill.
Read Joshua.? (Yahweh Wrote That.)
A Simplicist Solution – at the risk of seeming coy:
the answer?s at the bottom of the vat –
a programme for the peaceable, a recipe for joy –
I speak straight faced & playing one straight bat:
let?s have no more heretics, no infidel, no goy,
no canine unbelievers, no kafiyah to destroy,
no one to be mean to & no bgr to annoy
(Who?ll Say God Says That?)
On the other hand, I can see how it would suddenly become mellifluous if spoken over a beat. Imagine Benjamin Zephaniah reading it and it has a totally different cadence.
Reading Porter’s article crystallised my thoughts on the apparent loyalty test that’s being applied to Moslems and Moslems only. If Moslems in Britain and elsewhere are being asked to publicly decide which they are first, British or Moslem, then the same should be asked of zionist Jews. Tell you what, let’s ask the fundamentalist Christians that too. Seems a reasonable enough question to an atheist like me, who has no spiritual allegiances other than an admitted fondness for carols. Which comes first for you, your religion or your country? If your answer is the former, does that make you some kind of traitor, as is being implied of all British and American Moslems?
If any loyalty test needs to be asked at all it’s not about religion or the lack of it, it’s about whether your loyalties lie with your country of residence or in Pakistan or Kashmir or Somalia or wherever, or even, sssssh, Israel.
And if we’re going to have loyalty tests, why stop there? Why not have people pledge allegiance to the flag publicly every morning? (Oops, some of you already do, sorry.) I don’t know, though, that’s only once a day. There must be something more that’ll make people prove their loyalty, surely.
Perhaps some sort of salute?
Poetry McGonagall Benjamin Zephaniah, War On Terror, Islam, Zionism,
