The Idola-Virus and Battered Fritters: An allegory 

By Mujahid Ahmed 

Since the beginning of time, our quest for knowledge commences the moment we develop the ability to grasp things within our reach. Given that this behaviour has primarily used to determine what was safely edible and what was not, the random probability that one of the items ingested turns out to be poisonous -and possibly lethal-, suggests that the first ever game of Russian Roulette was played millions of years before the Russians decided that life was not exciting enough as it is. 

My daughter Faye, has just turned one. And although there was no specific term for people who identify with mixed ancestry -South Africans use the term coloured¬, which I feel is pejorative-, people still find it amusing when I describe as her being caramel-skinned and that only way she was distinguishable as half African and half Anglo-Saxon was when you compared her cocoa-brown eyes with her pearly white and permanently cheeky grin. That being said, her cheeky larrikinism and easy-going nature quickly gives away her half Hakuna Matata and half “No worries” Afro-Australian heritage. 

My wife Grace and I often reminisce over the fact that we had determine her ancestry only 2 hours after she was born when my wife was handed a “Baby Ethnicity Group” form to complete for census purposes. Although I had not had a chance to read it, Grace’s facial expression as she glazed through the form was enough for the theme tune from “Jaws” to start blaring in my head loud enough to the point that I felt that I myself was haplessly wading on a beach at the wrong time, because I knew the chain reaction that followed it. A migration and refugee lawyer by trade, my wife Grace had developed a reputation of being extremely fierce and relentless in her industry to the point that I often quip that the only difference between her and an angry tiger was her Prada lipstick. I’ve often marvelled at her commitment for her disadvantaged clients over and beyond the call of duty. I will never forget the night one of refugee clients called her one evening advising that he/she was barred entry to Australia due to an overnight change in legislation overnight. So, if you cringe at the thought of calling a friend in an ungodly hour, try calling a Federal Judge after ten PM demanding he files an immediate injunction to allow her client to re-enter the country. Truth be told, seeing her turn to red-headed version of the hulk only a few hours after enduring the pains of the labour and birth filled me with nothing but sympathy for the person coming back into the room to collect it. 

After reading the form myself, I found that her anger was extremely justified. Firstly, the form provided a small list of 7-8 ethnicities to select from -which included Australian even though the jury was still out on what exactly that meant, and if your ethnicity was not on the list, we were expected to tick “other” and specify. To top it off, the form stated -verbatim- that if the baby is of mixed ethnicity, we were required to pick our preferred one, and the form could only be signed by the mother. After some serious convincing -which included Grace carpet bombed me with enough legislation acts which I truly felt would have been enough to impeach the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, we opted not to fill it in at all the end. And although it was very difficult to resist the temptation to put her ethnicity as “Jedi Knight”, I can safely confirm however that no hospital staff were harmed as a result of this incident. 

Faye is living proof of our genetic predisposition to grab and immediately chomp on items within reach although I sincerely doubt that our forefathers -had they encountered one- would have deliberated long on whether a TV remote is an essential part of a healthy diet. Faye on the other hand, was still of the firmest belief that the TV remote would become edible one day, but until then she has found solace in the fact that -at least- biting on it repeatedly ends up switching on the television. In contrast, it only took her two attempts to determine beyond reasonable doubt that my wife’s spinach and corn fritters were definitely inedible. Since then, the indignant facial expression she gives us at the mere sight of a fritter has been enough for us to hurriedly offer her an alternative, and -now that I’ve recounted the story Grace’s to the Baby Ethnicity Form, it does not take a genius to figure out where she got that side of her personality. Behold, Baby Shark! 

From my perspective, Faye is the quintessential embodiment of an Afro-Australian. He larrikin yet infinitely tenacious and unwavering relentless -and ultimately- battle to prove the TV remote equals sustenance is as an ANZAC Spirit as it can get. Her African ancestry is also easily recognizable given the menacing glare and battle roar she lets out while she rhythmically bangs her wooden spoon as if it were a Zulu warrior’s deadly spear when spots the evil hordes of fritters in the distance. G’day! Are you the cheeky bugger who dares challenge the mighty ANZA-Zulu?! No worries, mate, but I’ve got to tell you from the get-go, that your chances are pretty much Buckley’s and none, mate, and I reckon I will be washing my spear with your blood before the footy starts! Howzzat!” She’ll be alright indeed. 

Accordingly, we often joke that -if she could speak- Faye would probably quote some of Samuel L. Jackson’s ominous lines from the “Pulp Fiction” film, given that we’ve watched it a few times while she was still in the womb… 

“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides. And if you try and force me to swallow one more spoonful, I shall strike upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger for attempting to poison me with this sorry excuse for a fritter!” 

“Say here comes the airplane one more time! I dare you! I double dare you!! 

Truth be told, I have resigned myself to the fact that there has not been much difference between my sentiment towards the information that I force-fed, -and expected to regurgitate- during my studies, and Faye’s sentiment towards the fritter. Both are dry, and bitter-tasting, and ingested and egested looking relatively similar -albeit with slightly different texture-, with the direct quotations akin to undigested corn kernels. It also quite saddening to profess that most of my study efforts over the past 20+ years have been more dedicated towards staying within the word count limit, and avoid “death of a thousand citations” by attempting to correctly cite authors -who will also apparently strike upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who forget the comma after their surname-. At the same, I can’t deny this arduous process has also helped me develop super-human abilities by which I can now conjure extremely long-winded -yet somehow coherent- sentences in order not to fall too short of the word count. 

The results were inconclusive 

“Consequently, there was a general consensus among the research team that the findings of the study did not yield a sufficient amount of quantitative data required to complete the statistical analysis. Therefore, it was impossible to confirm or deny that the hypothesis that was being tested was proven beyond reasonable doubt. Hence, -and as a direct consequence of the findings- the unanimous determination after the study was completed was that the results were ultimately labelled as inconclusive”. 

The study is Irreplicable 

“Accordingly, it has been found that it was highly unlikely that the experiment that was conducted could be reproduced. As this was classified as a breach of one of the key tenets of empirical research which explicitly states that true experimental design is contingent on the fact that an investigative study can be replicated in the future or else the results of which -even if they were found to be ground-breaking- will not be deemed as valid”. 

Another disheartening realization was that the hundreds of essays and reports I’ve written, will not necessarily enrich humanity in any way, shape, or form as they were completed at a student level, and therefore unpublishable. Secondly, I have grown tired of feeling like Switzerland in the middle of an eloquent and passive aggressive cold war between one researcher who dares to critique the theory proposed by another, taunting them to respond to the ludicrous criticism of their theory by authoring a paper where they critique the critique of their theory in an infinite loop. Legend has it that Prometheus was punished by the gods daily for stealing the heavenly fire of knowledge for humanity. Little did he know that even if he had gotten away with it and escaped the wrath of the gods, by being placed into an earthly witness protection program, and given a new identity as a college professor. Dr Titan Prometheus would’ve also been be punished on earth by being forced to respond to the critique of the manner the heavenly fire was stolen, and how it could have been done better. 

This non-sensical, time-consuming, and often expensive loop has no correlation with a person’s level of education whatsoever. It is the same primal urge we feel as children to bicker and tease one another. The “I know something you don’t know” drug is highly addictive, readily available, and people have literally robbed and killed each other for it. Sticks and Stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt me unless they have been peer-reviewed and subsequently published in an internationally respected and well-known scientific journal. I also remain quite puzzled by how modern-day knowledge is instilled in a manner that is polar opposite to which it was modelled upon. Using Plato’s allegory of the cave as an example, which makes it explicitly clear that students should not be confined to cave-like campuses, and -ideally- should passively receiving knowledge rather directly from teachers. 

Therefore, it has been ironic that I had spent many a night absorbing the tenets of the Baconian Inductive Reasoning method, that forewarned of dangers of falling victim to pointless and time-consuming and viral logical fallacies such as Idola Fori or "Idols of the Market", which results from the imperfect correspondences between a word’s definition and the real things in nature the word represent such as “Why is it called an outstanding fine when there is nothing outstanding or fine about it?” or Idola Tribus and Idola Specus¸ which occur when the words or research of the renowned and the revered are unequivocally taken as “Gospel Truth” without introspection even if they were clearly biased, such as Abraham Lincoln’s famous saying “Don’t believe everything you read on the internet just because it has a picture of a famous person next to it. 

Consequently, we -supposed intellectuals- have completely absorbed in debating logical fallacies such as how is warfare ever fair, more so than the logical fallacies that have caused the eruption of warfare in the first place. Nevertheless, I strongly recommend against anyone asking a supposed intellectual what is the correct pronunciation of the data, as they will most likely gasp at you in horror, and assert that only imbeciles pronounce data as data! 

There is no greater testament to the fact that the war educated and the ignorant is -will remain- in an infinite state of stalemate than the current pandemic. Every day media outlets broadcasts live footage of hundreds of irate protestors defying the social distancing rules and the need to wear masks voicing their concerns that their government’s lockdown measures are in fact fascist and draconian restrictions (Fori), even though these restrictions have come at the cost of billions of dollars to the economy. Another channel broadcasts footage of medical professionals and politicians lambasting their government for not acting on faster to combat the spread of the virus (Tribus), followed by subsequent interviews on a different channel where they voice their scepticism of the efficacy of the proposed vaccine given that they have caused the death of 1 in 4 million cases, and therefore led to limited interest in vaccination drives (Specus). Consequently, the only clear consensus is that neither faction can agree, or agree to disagree, or even agree that their disagreement might be disagreeable both within themselves, let alone the other side. If the Idola fallacies were a virus, this combination of all three combined (Fori-Tribus-Specus) would’ve surely been deemed as its Delta Variant. 

After completing both Bachelor and Masters Degrees, two Graduate Diplomas, learning four languages, and travelling and living in over thirty countries, I was finally beginning to think that my 30-year personal quest for enlightenment which has felt like a tortuous swim through what I now affectionately refer to as the Styx Acadamicus, the river that forms the boundary between Earth’s well-educated, and the ignorant who inhabit the underworld. Legend has it that those who successfully cross Styx Senior become invincible -except for their heel-. In the same vein, it has also been said that those who cross the Styx Acadamicus supposedly attain the highest level of knowledge. People who manage to cross the Styx Acadamicus will suffer total loss of their ability to discern between what does and what doesn’t constitute beneficial knowledge, such as the fact that if you yelled for eight years, seven months, and six days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee, or the discovery that posits that if you passed gas consistently for six years and nine months, you would produce enough gas to create an atomic bomb's energy. 

After I made it to other side of the river. I see a box in the distance, and crawl towards it with what energy I have left. And when I pry it open, I find a scroll. 

“Glory to you, weary swimmer for finally making it to the destination that many have died trying. The first step towards reaching the highest level of knowledge and achieving enlightenment, requires you to know well what you do not know. The less afraid of the unknown you become, and embrace your uncertainty, the more comfortable you will feel knowing what you don’t know. Moreover, you must accept -and learn to live with- the countless number of times you will stumble and fall during your quest however, your path to enlightenment will not be based on how many times you get up each time you fall, but rather on your ability to continue to keep stumbling, yet always to find your footing. Do not become frustrated by the fact that it will seem that all you are doing is stumbling from the right answers to the wrong questions, and the right questions to the wrong answers. You will also need to understand and resign yourself to the fact that it will not be the truth that shall set you free, and prepare yourself for the most brutal and soul-crushingly painful experiences that you can ever imagine that comes with the realization that everything you imagined to be true and any belief you cherished is not. Until then, -and rather than continuing to search for constant truth- dedicate the bulk of your efforts towards the search for constant doubt about everything as for nothing is certain, and even when it is, it is still debatable."

Yours sincerely, 

Socrates and Philo-falafel Squad 

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I suddenly see Faye playing with the sand. Finding the scroll took me 39 years, but she was able to do it 12 months given that she knows that chomping on the remote switches on the television, and even if she does not know why, it doesn’t matter and she’s content with the fact that she gets to watch Teletubbies. In the same vein, not knowing why spinach and corn fritters are terrible is inconsequential, and is equally content with fact that she has no idea why she gets offered a different meal when she scowls as long as it was not a fritter. Looking back at my own journey, I can’t help but get choked up however knowing that -like her father- she will be spending night after night through Styx Acadamicus only to find that most employers will hire her more so for her cheeky smile, inquisitive nature, and affable personality rather than her “I swam across the Styx Acadamicus” certificate. 

As soon as we lock eyes, she runs towards with her cheeky grin. “Daddy”
“Yes, oh mighty ANZA- Zulu, I mean Faye?” 

“Why is naked is pronounced as naked but baked is not pronounced as baked?

 BY MUJAHID AHMED  AFRICA, POLITICAL MAY 5, 2016

A COUNTRY OF POOR MILLIONAIRES

    

The word inflation does not even begin to make sense unless one travels to Zimbabwe. Currently the inflation rate is at 3.5 MILLION percent…

he word inflation does not even begin to make sense unless one travels to Zimbabwe. Currently the inflation rate is at 3.5 MILLION percent and I use a few examples to help illustrate this fact.

A brick today costs the same amount a 3 bedroom house cost 25 years ago, a loaf of bread costs as much as 12 new cars could have cost 10 years before and if you fancy an egg for breakfast then I suggest counting your bills as one egg in Zimbabwe costs FIFTY TRILLION DOLLARS – no typo here.

The country has just issued its latest currency bill which is valued at ONE HUNDRED TRILLION DOLLARS. I shuddered when I received the bill, hoping deep down that I never need change for a bill that large as I will have no way of carrying the change unless I hire some sort of modified forklift.

Despite the dire situation I found that Zimbabweans still embraced their lives with a great degree of humour. Walking down the street, a beggar brandishes a sign laden with Zimbabwean bills with a text in the centre stating that he was a “starving billionaire” in need of great assistance. The discovery that I am an African foreigner from another land only leads to them unleashing their humour on the unsuspecting whilst unanimously bearing the same cheeky grin.

When my hotel room ran out of toilet paper the concierge stated that toilet paper was out of stock but “he would be more than happy to send me some Zimbabwe Dollars if I needed some urgently” with a chuckle. When taking a taxi, one must carry the exact amount or risk having to hire another taxi to drive behind you to carry your remaining change. After a few days all the extra zeros began to give me a headache so I began to pay with American Dollars and vehemently insisting that the vendor keep the change. An easy feat when a hamburger and fries cost me the equivalent of $1.5 US dollars.

I began to reflect on why the locals were still able to find laughter amidst the madness and the trillions. Then it hit me that what they were doing was a very common trait within the African identity. In countries where the situation was rough or dire –and there are plenty- a nation unique brand of dark humour –pardon the pun- seems to evolve from the masses. In Sudan where a dictator has reigned supreme for over 30 years under what has been effectively a police where silence is golden you see cars with bumper stickers with the most cryptic –or not so cryptic depending on how you look at it- messages such as “You’re an idiot and you know who you are” and “I truly regret not finishing trade school”. Hotel staff will also cheekily give a choice between hot water or electricity as “you cannot have your shower and heat it”. The same thing goes in Egypt where anti-government protests carried signs that said “Please step down, I have been protesting for weeks and miss my wife” and “Please come back, we were only kidding”. Dark humour has become our only free and implicit defence mechanism. We all get the butt of the joke but will never name it out loud. In continent where misery truly loves company, a private joke that only you and your fellow countrymen get has truly become worth billions and billions.

 

SEE THE PHOTO

Mujahid Ahmed

 

 

 

“Mate, I’m not taking the piss, but did you make this at home?”  

 

That question was directed towards seventeen-year-old me, as I stood at the border security queue at Adelaide Airport on January 25^th, 2001. I was already extremely drained from the 14-hour flight, which included a 17-hour layover. Moreover, I had to endure the entire flight sitting curled in a quasi-foetal position, pressured to decide whether I wanted the chicken or beef when I couldn’t even lower my tray table low enough without it pressing down on both my legs like a sandwich maker. Although I don’t consider myself to be a masochist, denying it however, is becoming incredibly difficult given that I continue to fly knowing that I’ve essentially paid to be bound, put in the stocks, and told when and what to eat as soon as I embark.  

 

My inferences from the question was one, I was not obligated to provide a urine sample, and two, he was bewildered by my Sudanese passport, which was not machine readable, and my identifying information was hastily scribbled on it with a blue felt-tip pen. To make matters worse, most of the key information was almost undecipherable even to a fluent Arabic speaker, as some sentences were written from right to left and vice versa. 

 

Unlike the fight or flight response most people experience when quizzed in this fashion upon arrival, I was not rattled mainly because I had seen the same dumbfounded facial expression on the faces of Asian, European, and African border security officers. Fantastically, my collection now includes an Australian face, though I was somewhat disappointed that he did not yell out “Crikey” when he first opened the passport. With a wide grin, I replied with the cheeky one-liner eight years in the making “No sir. And if I had, I would’ve done a better job of it”. I then handed him a copy of my Australian student visa, and I allowed through.  

 

A few steps past the gate however, the same customs officer yelled out “Oi mate. Hang on one sec”.  

 

Uh-oh, in terms of border checks, being asked to come back was a new experience for me, so I didn’t have a plan B or C. The veins on each side of my temples began to thump with so much force that it felt like there was a drum solo in my head. As a comics fan, a quote by a time-travelling comic character instantly came to mind. “I went forward in time to view alternate futures and all the possible outcomes. I saw 14000065, and only one was different but I can’t tell you which, or it will not happen”. Of the superlative catalogue blend of inspirational and motivational quotes stored in it, my brain picked the most morbid one. Was it the -clearly ineffective- incense mum gave me to bless my journey? Or was it the “sacred” leopard skinned boots my uncle insisted I take with me

“Because this particular leopard was a pain to catch”?   

  

 

“Before you head off, can I please grab a copy of your passport to show the boys at the office? They’re going to think I was taking the piss when I tell them! The only part that was spot on was the description of holder bit where they’ve simply said, “See Photo”! That’s gold!”.  

 

Crikey.  

 

From day one, my list of differences between Oz and Sudan continues to be a living document, as I discover new ones almost every day. Almost every difference has led to a shift in perspective. An example that comes to mind was when I was first invited to a barbeque where the host requested that the guests “Bring a plate”. For a long time after, I wondered why people stared at me funny for walking in with an empty plate rather than at the host who invited a group of people over when they themselves couldn’t even afford basic crockery? I will also never forget the profoundly philosophical response I got back when I asked a bystander for directions which of two possible routes to get to the library was shorter. “Six of one, half dozen of the other, mate”.   

 

Moreover, I had arrived in a country where the failure to vote incurs a fine, from a country where the ruling party’s political slogan was “Stay home. We will vote for you!” My father, who was a journalist and a staunch critic of the regime and consequently, was frequently detained. This arbitrary detention occurred so often that when the government’s henchmen came calling, he greeted them at the door carrying a pillow and a toiletry bag. He once cheekily told me that he was trying to negotiate a deal to ensure he was detained on nights when mum was planning to cook her eggplant casserole for dinner, because “Unlike the regime, he cannot write a scathing column about it”. He returned one evening to tell us that he had asked for a book written by a fellow dissident writer to read, to which the guard replied, “Sorry, we don’t have it, but he’s in cell B-33 if you wanted to chat to him in person”.  

 

Soon after my arrival, I met the O’Connell family through their daughter Lizzie. And since we first met in 2002, I had spent so much time at Lizzie’s home, that I began calling her parents Ma and Pa. Pa -now retired-, was a police commissioner, who -with serious cajoling- recounted jaw-dropping tales of high-speed chases in cars that were spewing thick fumes, and jumping over fences, while

chasing armed gunmen. I think that most people were more in awe of his casual tone of voice while describing the experience as if the story was about chasing the rubbish truck on bin collection day. As we were both avid fans of football, Sherlock Holmes, and forensic science, we bonded quickly, and I nicknamed him Commissioner Gordon from Batman, which was remains fitting because he seemed to always appear when I needed help, and vanish before I could say thanks.  

 

Ma on the other hand, I’ve always found very difficult to describe. Metaphorically speaking, if Pa with his ever-so calm demeanour was Iceman, then Ma would surely be Hestia, the Greek Goddess of Fire and Family. “You wouldn’t want me angry”, was her ominous disclaimer, which is Bruce Banner says before turning into the Hulk. Trust me, on a bad day, Ma could easily make the Hulk stop yelling and mow the lawn after he was done with the dishes. Irrespective of the subject, Ma speaks with vehemence, telling people -myself included- what they needed rather than what they wanted to hear. And therefore, for the past twenty years, Ma was who I’ve sought out when I needed sugar-free advice. She’s always helped me pick my battles, and strategically stepped into them when she felt she needed to. I will eternally remain grateful for them both; because I am surely one of the few people who have the Batman and a Fire Goddess on speed-dial.     

Years down the track and I was going to Lizzie’s house more with the intent to spend time with Ma and Pa. I had my own key to both their house and their cars and therefore, I came and went as I pleased. Even if no one was home, I would still drop in to watch a late-night football match or to use Pa’s makeshift gym. One afternoon, I found Ma hysterically laughing after the neighbours had told her that they, “Just saw a tall black man using the sauna, and that he’s out the back now doing bench-presses!” 

 

As an honorary O’Connell, I was the M.C. at Lizzie’s wedding and soon after, an uncle to her children. I watched Pa consistently earn accolade after accolade, yet still seemed prouder of the fact that -despite being in his sixties- could still chase the rubbish truck with recyclables under one arm and hard rubbish under the other. Ma’s Goddess of Fire form also seems to have gotten stronger, as she -although now in her fifties- she still got asked for identification at licensed venues, only to be ejected from them due to her rowdiness shortly after. 

 

 

2020 for many us was the year our world magically went from being the stage to a hapless protagonist in a morose interpretation of a Dickensian novel -if it were cowritten by Marquez, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky while they were stuck in quarantine together-. “Dr Zhivago: Fourteen Days of Solitude”, “On the Eve of a Chronicle of a Death Foretold”, or “Anna Karenina: Ephemeral Love in the Time of the Coronavirus”.

 

“It was the worst of times; it was the worst of times for time was not passing, .it was turning in a circle. A time where seven billion people acquired the forlorn look that one sees in vegetarians, and each of them were unhappy in its own way. It was the epoch of belief; it was the epoch of incredulity. A year when -by not social distancing or wearing a mask, you are sincere but still stupid”

 

In short, “What the Dickens just happened?”

 

And depending on who you ask, 2020 was either the year we went toe-to-toe against a modern-day ill-begotten seed of a Bubonic plague and the toilet-paper famine, or that in fact it was 1984, clothed in naked villainy purely to restrict our civil liberties. A cynical rant by my fellow Sudanese countryman Deng about the current apocalyptic steals a grin every time I watch another “The end is nigh!” press conference.

 

“Bro, firstly, the reminder to wipe all surfaces is not really necessary for everyone, because you know that we already wipe all surfaces, door handles, even clean the bedrooms upstairs even when our neighbour calls to say she’s coming to burrow a cup of sugar! Secondly, I don’t understand why westerners panic so much every time they hear about a new virus! We get so many viruses back in Africa, we should get a National Virus Day paid public holiday every year! I just sincerely hope that the next one will not be called the Johnny Walker or the Heineken Virus or something like that, because I casually mentioned to someone at work that I got a free case of Corona-Extra with my last food order, and they made me quarantine for

14 days!!”

 

I remain on the fence on what 2020 was like for me, as I am of the firmest belief that we as human beings are not necessarily able to discern then and there what constitutes a positive or negative experience. I for one vividly remember a time where I was walking across a searing dessert, -literally not figuratively, in 50+degree Celsius heat with a shattered left arm, and a bag nearly twice my weight feeling quite forsaken and dejected, wondering “How on earth would this ever be a positive experience?!” It took me over two decades to realise how incredibly enriching that ordeal had left me, as I never felt lost ever again and when I did, it was never laced with any dread or helplessness. 

 

I guess what I am trying poorly to say, is that I learned that some of the most stressful and difficult moments of one’s life might end up being the most formative and even motivating. And, -on the flipside, some of the best and most gratifying experiences of one’s life can end up being the most distracting and demotivating. And ever since, I no longer trusted my own perception of what a positive or negative experience is, because all that I know is what hurts in the moment, and what doesn’t, which is, to be frank, not worth much.

 

Fast forward twenty years, being told that I am “Built like a brick shithouse” no longer offensive, and learned that no actual urine samples are required when “You take the piss” Sadly, I still cannot confirm nor deny whether it was “A bloke called Damo” or Confucius who coined the sagacious proverb “If you’re not careful, you may find yourself up a certain creek with no paddle”.    

As for me, I’ve graduated and became a counsellor, travelled the world, learned two languages, became a comedian, married an Australian woman called Grace, and most -importantly- I have a daughter. My Nigerian friend Kingsley, was dumbfounded because he has not much luck with Australian women using the one-liner “You look healthy, and your huge hips are the ideal size for child bearing! So, are you seeking a husband?”.  

 

Ageing is a Sisyphean struggle. We spend most of our youth pushing the boulder upwards and aspiring to move it forward, and then the rest of our lives with our heels dug in trying to prevent it from gaining momentum. When I first arrived in Australia, my bags were not only laden with the incense my mother swore was like Sarin Gas for spirits, the shoes made out of -from what I was told- an exceptionally tenacious leopard, but also the assumption that I was a grownup. My spiritual beliefs now include the ANZAC spirits, and my dry sense of humour is now DrizaBone. My garishly coloured Sudanese moral fabric is now interwoven with green and gold.  

 

Bloody-oath, mate.

 

 

 

 

Two decades on, I realise if I could go back in time, I would either make the same mistakes or new ones, “Six of one, half dozen of other”. Therefore, I would tell seventeen-year-old me that whichever route you will take, you will end up where you’re supposed to be. Moreover, being a Grown-up is a burdensome epithet, and a dubbing people die trying to abdicate.  

 

Standing in that delivery room, hearing my wife screaming in primal agony, was the second time I felt the drum solo thumping in my head. And oddly, it reminded me that leopard-skinned shoes which were still sitting in my shed. My daughter Amani, is only a few weeks old, and she spends more time asleep than awake. The deafening silence when she’s asleep evokes the possibility of unperceived existence, and I often forget she’s there. She has no idea who I am yet, evidenced by her utter disappointment when she tries to suck on my chest when I hold her. While everyone coos at her, I still find her featureless. All I see are questions. What will her account of “Growing up in a diverse Australia” look like? Will she have her mother’s emerald-green eyes? Will she be light or dark-skinned? When the time comes, I think the best response to these queries will once again be “See the Photo”! 

 

 

Egypt7000

My name is Mujahid. I am a stand-up comedian, and tonight, the Laugh Garage is my coliseum…

I arrive at 8:30. The show starts in thirty minutes, add to that the fifteen “Warm up” minutes the MC will perform, and I’ve got 45 minutes to get ready and go through my “preparations”. I actually don’t have anything special to prepare before the show. Well, one thing I do when I play this particular club is I always make sure I go into the adjacent convenience store. The shopkeeper is from Egypt. And due to the current events undergoing, our conversations always went in the same direction, more crazy shit happening in Egypt. Last night, I saw protestors on horse AND camelback charging at other protestors. Watching that from Sydney seemed surreal. I wondered if they thought that camels could dodge bullets.

The moment a comedian walks into a venue, he starts tasting the air. Are they a happy crowd? Can you get away with improvisation or do you need to do a tight set? A million questions, for an outdoor gig, we even look at wind direction, as it can either spread the laughter wide or make you feel you are speaking in the eye of the storm. A jazz trio plays Frank Sinatra and does a very good job of it. The mood seems positive and everyone is acting and dressing very relaxed. The type of audience is like a cat, you keep their attention focused on you the whole time like a dangling string. They don’t know why they cant look elsewhere as long as you keep dangling the string. And if they find something slightly more interesting then you have lost them and your momentum. All you can do then is wait for a big laugh and close the set. Your last joke is what you will be mostly remembered by, not the preceding fifteen minutes.

Fareed, the shopkeeper swears profusely in Arabic. If for anything, Arabic is the queen of swear languages. The possibilities are endless. It’s like a Middle Eastern Fusion kitchen. Anything goes with anything. For example, “If I catch Hosni Mubarak, I hump the dead peoples of his mother” Nice going, just get him madder… A barrage of insults hits me like giant flashlight on my face. In the Middle East we say if you ever get into an argument with an Arab, pray that he is not Egyptian! They have a mouth that won’t quit. My favorite Egyptian swear is called “Khaltak” or “Your auntie”. The idea is to listen to what the other person says, extract something rude out of it and just “Is your auntie” to the sentence. FOR EXAMPLE: “Ali! How is my favorite Palestinian werewolf?” Response: “The werewolf is your auntie!” Now that was an easy example. The Egyptian swear dictionary is not FIFA accredited. This means that there are no rules, and the field is twice as wide, but we will get back to that later. “Later is your auntie!”

The crowd is nice and warmed up. The MC did a great job. His role there is the Unknown Soldier. You are basically are a reconnaissance soldier, first charging infantry, and a human shield. You engage the crowd to prime the room so that the other acts can ascend smoothly. It is no secret in the industry that a good MC can sail 4 average acts safely and mostly painlessly to the other side while 4 great acts are forsaken if they have a rubbish MC. As he brings me on he throws the customary black joke. I grin, as I climb the stage I throw back what seems like a witty comeback. I am actually grinning because they don’t know that that whole thing was staged. The MC had warned me that he is doing that joke so I can use my comeback to double the time it would usually take to built rapport with audience. If you seem smart and quick from the get-go then you are halfway there. The Unknown Soldier does it again.

Fareed tells me of all the hardship that his family is going through back in Egypt. Having many Egyptian friends like in my case meant that since this debacle started I have heard stories that I can’t even repeat. In my moments of frustration, anger and anguish, I felt like a buying a plane ticket and going there. I didn’t don’t know what I would do once I got there though. I was a paramedic for three years so I could do that. With the bodies lining the streets, there would always be work for me I assume. I fantasized about picking up all my friends in a big convoy to safety, to freedom, to a better life. Then I realized that I could fly there but I had a snow ball’s chance in hell in making it out of the damn airport, according to the news. This thing would probably boil over while I am trying to find a cabbie that would agree to drive straight through road blocks. I saw the cities burn. I discovered then one the strangest pains in the world. To see a building you walked through for hours up in flames is an intensely sharp pain, like part of you is burning in that building, and you sadly certain that, no how well they rebuild the building or your soul, it will never be the same again. Every street on the television was sadly familiar. The café on the corner of Tahrir (Liberation) Square that made the best bean (foul) stew. The In-the-middle-of-the-city’s-biggest-intersection kiosk that sells magazines and tahini flavoured gum, and yes it’s as horrible as it sounds. Watching Egypt being eradicated so that it somehow becomes better was and still is like being forced to watch someone you deeply care being violated over and over again and all you can do sit there and watch. An Arabic writer, Ahmed Toufik, wrote a line about what to do when you are unable to save someone you love:

“I may not be able to save you, but do not worry, for l choose to die before you. For a life without you in it, is not worth living…” I felt like dying as I watched everyday struggling Egyptians who worked for $40 a month actually die. The regime was killing them and now the revolution is killing them. Some people have no luck.

First joke, bang! I got them in the palm of my hand. Like a snake charmer, I must keep playing and keep moving. You are a joke sniper, you only get one shot per joke, and then you have to keep moving between targets. So far, the first 6 jokes where like shots to the head –sorry Mrs. Griffin-. Time to bring out the big guns. In a comedy “battle”, small jokes like small arms, they go first and the “caliber” of your joke must increase with every shot. Your last shot must be the “money shot”. It has to be the BIGGEST of all your joke “bombs”. Like I said earlier, the only thing that anyone remembers from a fight is the knockout punch, so make it better than good. Make it phenomenal. I cruise through the rest of the set with no problems. I even have to stop a few times for applause. These are the nights that cemented our addiction the stage. Your comedy career does not really start until you “bring the house down” of your own merit. From then on, you are a “stage junkie”, waiting for the next “hit”, praying that every high will feel like the first time you were up there. I improvise slightly as the mood of the evening permits it. The new jokes work as well. You check the imaginary clock in your head and curse, saying the same thing every comic says at this very moment. “Damn! I could be up here forever…” Amen. I wrap it up with my biggest joke “bomb”. I wrote it years ago but like the collective will of the Egyptian people, we never really realized the power that was in our hands. I get constant applause, six years of work paying off. A few whistles and a hoot and I bow and walk backwards into to the darkness in the back of the stage. I instantly breathe a huge sigh of relief. That twenty minute skirmish can still sap a lot of your energy in the process. It didn’t matter. Mission accomplished.

Farid giggles mischievously when I tell him cynically that I think shooting a dictator like Mubarak would be a waste of a bullet because a criminal like him must given to the people so that they can teach him that payback is bitch. I also tell him jokingly that King Fahad of Saudi Arabia has reserved Mubarak a castle next to the castle of president Zain Al-Abdin of Tunisia so they can be neighbors and hang out together, listening to Fairouz. No, they are unworthy of listening to Fairouz, she is a queen of the people, the woman who once famously sang “The road to Jerusalem is down a barrel of a rifle.” No, these two idiots can sit there reminiscing to the old days while listening to “Smack That” by Akon.

I wave goodbye to Farid as I leave the shop. That conversation was a good twenty minutes. He looks happy to see me every time and seeing him being so stoic and relaxed, yet instantly cursing like an Arab sailor reminds me of where I come from and there is still hope. Assuming that 80 million Egyptians will have 5 percent of the population classified as geniuses, then this means that there are at least 4 million intelligent, gifted, and free thinking Egyptians out there just waiting for a chance to make right. The ones on the streets are just the tip of the iceberg. “Your auntie is an iceberg”.

To my brothers and sisters in Egypt. The kindness and compassion that you have engulfed me with when I visited Egypt last year I have never felt elsewhere outside my home. Believe me when I say that, if it meant repaying your kindness, I would be more than willing to trade places with you right now. We are thinking of you every day and every night. You are often in our dreams but always in our prayers. Your quest for democracy and free thought is our quest. With your actions you remind us all that life is simply a matter of which bridges to cross and which bridges to burn. You also remind us that it is better to die on your feet than live on your knees. I salute you. We salute you.

My brother Fizo and the Asmar Family, Mousa and his family, Kareem Kamatcho and his family, Arafa, Ahmad, The families of Haytham, Eman, Ahmed Jo, Ahmed Moenis, and Al-Nahda National Schools, Class 11AS, 2000.Please be safe. Ali… your mom is my auntie…

Iron Bars - Stephen Marley ft. Mr. Cheeks

28 today

I turned 28 today which, certainly made it a time to ponder. For starters, I realize now that I should be thankful for many things. I have now come to the conclusion that at every critical junction in my life, I was headed for sure disaster, someone or something slightly adjusted my trajectory so that I avoided collision albeit with a few cuts and bruises. It is these bruises and scars that remind me that what happened was very real.

I am writing this entry also, to say that I am thankful that at every critical turn in my life, love in one way, shape or form that helped me avoid that collision. This love -in many of our cases- was not necessarily the love of another human being. Sometimes that love was as simple as song that hit the right note at the right time. Buffalo Soldier by Bob Marley, Me Against the World by Tupac spring to mind. So, thank you, Bob and thank you, Tupac. You saved my life more times than you can imagine… Jah BLESS! Thank you all for the faith you have had in me when even I didn’t have any in myself.

It is this love that keeps going today. After living in Sydney for 6 months, I am trying to stay standing despite the repeated emotional and financial blows to the sternum (upper chest) and solar plexus (stomach). In Adelaide I left a job, a partner, good friends for what’s in the” box”. And so far, the “box” that is Sydney has been a mixed bag of little joy, new friends, new enemies, but mostly, more blows to the sternum. I am not complaining as much as I am being descriptive. Well, maybe complaining a little bit but I am amongst friends. According to my buddy Saif, I am “built for rugged terrain”. Sounds flattering, but it makes me feel somewhere between an Arabian camel and gas guzzling sports utility vehicle.

So, Happy 28^th birthday, you 6 foot, chocolate Adonis! May your next years be filled with crazier adventures, tons of laughter, hours of self-indulgence, and a date with Miss Venezuela of any year. And yes, go Tony Abbot, I have seen it all, except an apocalypse!

“Sometimes the beauty of an event is lost in all its detail”

Nelson Mandela

Rude Awakening

SPLASH! With that, my best friend Saif, and so-called “gentle giant”; came down on me like a bucket of ice-cold water on the face of a sleeping Chinese political prisoner. The gentle giant, was gentle no more. Good friends listen intently and suggest alternatives to your dilemmas; better friends deliver the pain, tell you things you NEED to hear rather than what you WANT to hear. And when you add his cold and calculating bluntness with his plethora of profane-yet profound choices of vocabulary, you were in for a mental and verbal beating of the highest caliber. After listening to him tear my Sudanese ass in one simple email, I now have two mental black eyes and a critically collapsed ego. Time for physical recovery, 2 weeks. Time for mental recovery, at least a month. Psychologists used to recommend that a person undergoing a mental breakdown should be slapped firmly on the face, my buddy Saif -I think- figured that if a slap can bring someone down to their senses, then a good ass-whooping will do no harm. Thank you, my friend.

Realizing that one is wrong is horrible feeling, realizing that you are wrong but choosing to remain stubborn is a worse feeling for me. When I first started studying, I wanted to be a physician, a life saver, -actually my mother wanted me to be physician and I went along until my third year of university when I realized that saving lives does not only have to happen in hospital-. However, I have songs that have saved my life, and don’t think that 2pac; Bob Marley and Sade had medical degrees. The point that I am getting to is that I was taught to be persistent and patient when lives were at the stake. Somewhere along the way, that ethos was transferred to my everyday life. I became persistent and stubborn about ALL my endeavors. Whether it was in my work or relationships, I never gave up on anything or anyone even when the situation clinically dead and I needed to move on. I was the guy giving a dead person CPR hours after the flat-line life monitor told the story more clearly than anyone. Someone needed to get me off the dead person and inside where I can wash up. I’m just thankful that like many, many other times in my life someone cared enough to whack me upside the head and tell me to move on.

Mojahed? (I hate the way he insists on spelling my name) Stop playing necro with dead person and let’s go for a smoke!

Sounds like a plan! Why didn’t you say this earlier?!

I was admiring your tenacity with the dead cause there. Beside I already had a smoke but I will be happy to share yours!

You’re all heart, Saif

And you got to first base with a cadaver!

I met Saif for the first time in 1997. We were in high school and he was a friend of someone who I thought was my best friend. Somehow, someday we caught up without that friend and realized that we had real tag-team partnership going. I was the level-headed, polite friend who his parents loved the supposed “influence” of. Saif was life sized, adventurous fun-loving Lucifer, but the good kind. Little that Saif’s parents know that you can lead Saif to water but you couldn’t really make him drink. Why? Because Saif never wanted to drink from the watering hole that everyone else frequented, he always wanted to drink from the watering hole that was forbidden to everyone else. And so, the adventures began with me in the passenger seat of a stolen 4x4, and Saif putting pedal to the metal and dishing out his own brand of street justice to unsuspecting peoples of Abu Dhabi, Dubai and everywhere in between. Our friendship also included a “spin-off” year where Saif did America and I tried to do Australia. Eventually, both shows were taken off the air due to the graphic violence, high intensity car scenes and the copious amounts of “herbal essence” but we always remained friends. He’s a busier man these days, a father of two and married, which is great but I think we both know and feel that, like anyone who lived a fast-paced life in the past, which you can’t help but get a twitch when someone mentions the crazy past. It’s the same feeling a retired fireman gets when he hears about a massive fire burning out of control, or even a retired rodeo person –Don’t know what they are called to be honest. Idiots trying to combine bestiality and voyeurism?- when he hears about a bull no one can “ride”. You just want in for that challenge and then to go back to your slow-paced life. In cheesy American movies someone often screams when the hero is nearby: “Is there anyone out there that can stop this madness?!” You bet your ass there is lady! But first, I need to find Mojahed and drag his ass along whether he likes it or not!

“But Saif, I exclaim, vandalism of private property is a felony, not a misdemeanor! No one will buy that you did it under martial law! I’m too pretty for jail!”

“Shut up, you try to confuse! –a common Saif random catch-phrase- Now wait in the car and play “My love is your love” by Whitney Houston and pump that shit real loud, it’s a good getaway track!!”

As a result of sitting in the passenger seats of a speeding Porche, BMW, Land Cruiser, Mitsubishi, and Mercedes over the past 13 years, I have to confess that I no longer have fear of sitting in any speeding vehicle. Not because I have blind faith in the driver –I do Saif, don’t get mad-, but I figure, there were at least TEN situations in the last 13 years where I had lost all hope making it and actually began wondering if Saif and I would be given beds in the same hospital ward –I’m a sucker for punishment I guess- and nothing happened. So that if something does happen, I was given so many get-out-jail cards in the past that when it does happen, its karma for the other ten times nothing happened! Some people bungee jump, some sky-dive, I sit in the passenger seat of my best friend’s car, buckle up and blast “My love is your love” by Whitney Houston...