Wednesday 31 January 2007

"Is the Army of God ready to march?!"

This was the cry of two late middle aged white women passing me at the
Holiday Feeling as I sat taking in my early morning Yorkshire tea. They
were addressing the group of young black men all clutching at their
Bible's waiting for them to arise for the day. These women refuse to
catch my eye for a polite 'morning' nod wishing to engage only with
those easily identifiable as maliable.
They are seriously one step away from a the twin set an pearls type,
all flowing skirts, cropped hair and earrings. One of them was also
overheard to say' "I'm no ORDINARY sponsor!" playing as written
earlier, into the deepest desires of the people here. I am of course referring
to The Missionary. Now, to say that the hoards of missionaries here are
truly preaching to the converted is a huge fucking understatement.
Every morning the Mosque belches out a cry followed not far behind by
the church services, now I'm talking 4am in the morning. But as one
women said, "if we didn't have Jesus, we'd all be crazy". My atheism is
kept private of course, the conversations following that revelation
would be like walking into a room full of mouse traps Tom & Jerry
style, funny but painful. So the few times I have been ask directly
(because I'm 'of colour' - they don't see me as black - they assume i'm
a Christian) I say I'm a Buddhist and very happy thank you and that
usually sends people off satisfyingly confused. But having said that, I
have huge respect for their right to religion and as requested ask the
Chaplains
of the Social Club to lead us in prayer after every session. The faith
in Jesus here occupies everything, all the shack store fronts are named
'In His Blessed Grace Goods' or 'Jehovah is God Fashion' or 'In the
Name of Jesus Sewing', in fact they are more inventive that my memory
here allows, most will preface and conclude a conversation with a
praising word for Him. There is a myriad of denominations from baptist
to catholic, Jehovah's witnesses to Islam, Rasta's to ... well you get
the point. Of course the organised religious groups here have also
brought money, the churches are used for social and community
activities and some of the missionaries not only preach but try to help the body as well as the spirit with practical assistance. But it's the missionary's
bashing their doctrines with blind insensitivity that i can't abide. A
steady stream of them arrive from the USA, all 'living in His glory'
and 'driving out the evil'. One of my biggest regrets in life will be
missing the opportunity to see Tom the Missionary do his 'thing'. He
was here for a couple of weeks, originally from California he's now
living in Israel as part of a mission who's 'thing' is to learn the
bible by heart. He was preaching at 'The BIG house' (BIG = believe in
god - i kid you not. the BIG house meaning something very different to
a Celt) I was desperate to go witness one of his TWO four hour sessions
of verbatim per day, but I messed up and then he was gone. tom looked
like a teenage Herman Munster and turned out to be easy to talk to as I
think he senses who he can preach at and when to just chill - a are
quality in a missionary. But most are like brainwashed automatons, armed with optimism, their version of the bible and the unwavering belief that they are RIGHT inviting swathes of young black, mostly men, back to their rooms at the end of the day for extra curricular
worship. It's like they're getting off on coming to the 'underdeveloped
world' to teach the natives how to be saved. Piss off. It'sracism and ingnorance at it's worst because it does not believe itself to be so. A Canadian, looking like an ugly Brian Adams said to us, "i'm a missionary, not a humanitarian." well, that says it all.

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