The Heelers Diaries

the fantasy world of ireland's greatest living poet

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Location: Kilcullen (Phone 087 7790766), County Kildare, Ireland

Saturday, January 10, 2009

and then the dark

"The Arabs will never be defeated," I said suddenly.
In the half light of the cafe, Serafina looked startled.
She had never heard me talk like this before.
"What do you mean?" she said.
Outside, night time traffic swept up Dame Street.
"The Arab nations will be upheld until the end of time," I murmured almost to myself.
Serafina did not keep the bemusement from her face.
"Would you care to explain what you're getting at?" she grinned.
I sat back.
"There's a tradition within Christianity," I said. "Not everyone knows about it or believes it. But some do. The tradition is that the Arabs are sons of Abraham just as the Israelis are. And the Arabs are his first born sons. When God told Abraham he would be the father of Israel and that the nation of Israel would speak God's truth to the world, Abraham pleaded with God: I am an old man, I already have a son, bless him and that will be enough for me. And God who is a father himself was pleased that Abraham would ask this. He told Abraham that his first born son would be the father of great nations, and that these would be blessed until the end of time. None will overthrow them. Ever."
Serafina was still doing her Cheshire cat impression.
"You're full of surprises today," she offered.
I stared out the window, my face as desolate as any of you have ever seen it.
"But the Iranians," I said softly. "Whose sons are they?"
Serafina took a sip of caffe latte.
"I presume you're going to tell me," she said.
There came a sound of revelry from the street.
Young men and women drunk and disorderly.
They passed by.
I spoke again.
"The first we hear about the Iranians is a few thousand years ago when 300 Greeks were kicking the arses of a mighty Iranian army through the passes of Thermopylae," I mused. "Nowadays they Iranians are more likely to do their fighting through proxy terror armies. Hamas in Gaza. Or Hezbollah in South Lebanon. Or through Syrian assassination squads in Beirut. There's some evidence though that Arab nations are getting tired of being used by the Iranian government to fight Iran's battles. The Arabs are nobody's farm animals. The Arabs are warriors. Remember when President Bush liberated Iraq from Saddam Hussein? It was the Iranians who sabotaged the liberation. It was the Iranians and their friends in Al Qaeda who decided Iraq didn't deserve to be free. It was the Iranians who murdered hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in a desperate attempt to stampede the Iraqi people away from freedom. It was the Iranians who blew up the Blue Mosque in an attempt to provoke an Iraqi civil war. The Iranians were so terrified of a free nation emerging on their borders. More precisely the Iranian government was terrified that a free Iraq on it borders would mean the Iranian people might also demand freedom. So the Iraqis had to be slaughtered. Not for the glory of Islam. For the glory of Iran. But here's the thing. All across the Middle East, more and more of the Arab nations are figuring it out. And Iran is getting scared. Hence all this talk from Iranian President Grinny Ahmadinejad about wiping Israel off the map. These are tough days for the Iranians. The Israelis have just totaled one Iranian proxy terror army in Gaza. The clock is running out on Hezbollah in Lebanon. And poor old mass murdering psychotic Iran is beginning to wonder if it has any friends left to fight its battles. Don't get me wrong. Iran will attack Israel. Eventually. Not because the Iranian government is brave. But because it's insane. And the Israelis will not honour Iran with valiant conflict as they honour the Arabs. The Israelis will destroy Iran with a nuclear Thermopylae."
I stood up.
It seemed the whole cafe had fallen quiet.
"I've got to go," I said. "The hour is getting late."
I walked alone into the cool night air.
A stooped oddly heroic figure forever burdened with a capacity to see clearly what the rest of the world wants to deny.



Dedicated to all my friends at the Iranian television channel Al Alam who visited The Heelers Diaries yesterday to explore their limits. I assure you guys I'm going to do my level best to keep you entertained.

4 Comments:

Blogger Schneewittchen said...

Um..ok, but I see a flaw in your argument, and it is this....

Say - for the sake of that argument - that you are looking to start a religion, and hope that it'll go viral (as they say). Wouldn't you look to one of the oldest and most established religions and see what you could find in the way of prophecies to push your own agenda?

And say you were trying to make it big in the old religion stakes around 500 years after someone DID fulfill a major set of prophecies.
Wouldn't you in fact invent a lineage that went back to Abraham so that people took you more seriously? Jolly hard for anyone to disprove, since Abraham (cunningly renamed as Ibrahim) must have lived some..what...1,000 years before that?

Just a thought, but I know it's what I'd do under the circumstances.

6:53 AM  
Blogger heelers said...

I hold with Professor Family Guy's view.
"You put two of you guys, an Israeli and an Arab, beside each other, and, uh, I'm sorry, but uh, I can't tell the difference."
I just feel it.
They're brothers alright.
All the way back to the beginning.
Perhaps the cleverest thing Satan ever accomplished was to bring the brothers to war.
As for the religion.
I had hoped that God was accomplishing some mystical purpose in the three religions.
Could it be that the Jews incarnate God the Father.
That the Christians incarnate Jesus.
That the Muslims incarnate God as pure eternal spirit.
And that all are essential incarnations of the one true God.
I offer the theological speculation for the consideration of my peers.
J

3:40 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't think that the Muslims have a view of the Holy Spirit, if that's what you're suggesting, James.

In many ways, I'd say that they have a very limited view of God. He's all-powerful but doesn't give a fillip about his creation as individuals. This is probably why they can't imagine God coming down to live among them; they say that the New Testament is really a distorted view of Jesus. (I forget right now what they call him. Isa?)

All good comes from Him, but they also see all evil as coming from God, too. And then there's the whole thing about public displays mattering more than one's heart and thoughts, which seems to be the very opposite of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

I know, I know, my theology stinks. I'll never be Pope. :)

1:53 AM  
Blogger heelers said...

MissJean!
The one and only!
Good food for thought there.
No your theology doesn't stink.
Perhaps my wishful thinking stinks.
Yes, some Muslims use a version of Jesus' name which sounds like Isa. It also sounds very like the old Gaelic version we once used in Ireland, Iosa.
So I quite like it!
As for the Muslims attitude to good and evil... Consider the way the people of Israel pray in the Old Testament. If they win the war, it's God who has blessed them. If they lose the war, it's God's punishment. Consider how we Christians have through no merits of our own been blessed with the insight that God is limitless light grace and goodness, but consider also how we accept that in a mystical sense until the end of time God has withheld his final judgement and allowed Satan some leeway to tempt us.
On the theological front Muslims, Christians and Jews have much to talk about.
MrJ

3:27 AM  

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