Undercover Muslim by Padnos Theo

Author:Padnos, Theo [Padnos, Theo]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781448105182
Publisher: Random House UK
Published: 2011-09-30T04:00:00+00:00

25

THIS LESSON COULD hardly have been more explicit but that summer in Yemen representations of animate beings were everywhere. President Saleh, who was opening his re-election campaign, had had his face emblazoned across just about every possible surface in the city: it was plastered to billboards, bank facades and bus windows. It gazed down from the walls of restaurants and tea shops, and illuminated the front pages of the newspapers.

One afternoon, when I was pedalling around town, I stopped to chat with a gaggle of child campaigners. Their clothing was covered with stickers depicting President Ali Abdullah Saleh. They had stationed themselves at an intersection and were passing out stickers and posters of President Saleh to drivers who were stalled in traffic.

‘Hey, foreigner! Do you love our president?’ one of them asked me.

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Long live the president.’

The kids high-fived me and marvelled at my bike. They asked to buy it, wondered how much it cost and when I told them it cost half a million Yemeni riyals or $1,000, they burst into laughter.

As I was pedalling away, a tall, bold kid plastered a sticker of the president’s face across my backpack. ‘We love you!’ said the legend on the sticker.

The next day, having forgotten about the kids and their stickers, I brought my backpack into the classroom with Bilal. The sticker had collected a coating of road grime by then but the president and the slogan were still visible. ‘Ali Abdullah Saleh: we love you!’

Sitting down in my normal chair, I straightened my robe and adjusted my cap. I stacked my books on a corner of my desk.

Bilal rose from his chair. He plucked the sticker from the backpack and raised it into the air, holding it away from his body as if it were a piece of toilet paper.

‘Look at what Thabit has gone and done now! Would you look at this then,’ he exclaimed. ‘Subhan allah! Would you look at this?’

He went on for several minutes in this vein. He brandished the incriminating evidence and condemned politicians, image makers and Western programmes that polluted the land of the Prophet with democracy.

Muhammad, our teacher, had had prior experience of Muslim enthusiasts from Europe. He had no training in teaching but he was an excellent classroom leader, who knew how to smooth ruffled feathers. He allowed Bilal to have his say and then held out his hand. ‘Give the sticker to me, please,’ he said in Arabic. Bilal deposited it on his desk.

Without mentioning the words ‘politics’ or ‘magic’ or uttering any other condemnation, he folded the sticker in two, ripped it into bits, and, standing over a wastebin, let the shreds fall through the air. He returned to his desk and opened a Koran he kept in readiness on top of his grammar books. He chose a simple verse, one he knew that I knew, which happened to be about earthquakes, then nodded at me: ‘Recite, Thabit,’ he said.

I think Bilal and I both got the message.

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