The Undocumented Mark Steyn (30 page)
Read The Undocumented Mark Steyn Online
Authors: Mark Steyn
And so the border post of “Free Iraq” is now the western frontier of the new Caliphate.
In 2002, hundreds of people died in rioting over. . . well, take a wild guess. Here’s how
The Daily Telegraph
reported the news:
“After escaping the riots in Nigeria, which claimed more than 200 lives, Miss World contestants were safely installed in their ever-decreasing numbers inside a Heathrow hotel yesterday. . . . Last week, a reporter for
This Day,
a Nigerian newspaper, wrote an article suggesting that Prophet Mohammed would ‘probably’ have chosen a wife from one of the contestants, a comment which sparked the unrest. . . .
“A number of alternative venues, such as Alexandra Palace, Wembley Arena and the Grosvenor House hotel on Park Lane, are being considered
.
“Glenda Jackson, the Labour MP for Hampstead, said: ‘They should call the whole thing off. . . .’”
Which set me thinking. . . .
The Daily Telegraph
, November 30, 2002
“
RUN THIS BY ME AGAIN
,” I said as we circled Lagos Airport. “We’re doing a new ‘culturally sensitive’ Miss World?”
“That’s right,” said Julia Morley. “I got the idea from all those stringy London feminists droning on about how we’re only promoting a narrow exploitative western image of women. And to be honest, after a week in England listening to their bitching and whining, I’m glad to be back in Nigeria. The locals’ll go crazy for this.”
“I hope not,” I said. But I was pleasantly surprised as we landed smoothly and taxied down the runway. “Look, Julia, a gun salute!”
“Duck, girls!” she yelled, as a SAM missile pierced the window, shot through the first class curtain, and took out the economy toilet.
“Now don’t you worry, Mark,” she said once we were safely in the limo. “Your material’s hardly been changed at all. Just remember, when you and Tony Orlando do ‘Thank Heaven for Little Girls,’ there’s a Sudanese warlord in a third-row aisle seat who’s got a new twelve-year-old bride you don’t want to be caught looking at.”
“Got it,” I said. The house band, made up entirely of Hausa band members, played the opening strains of Stevie Wonder’s classic love song, and Julia pushed the revised culturally-sensitive lyrics into my hand. It was then that the first nagging doubts began to gnaw at the back of my mind. But what the hell, I was in my tux and they were playing my song.
I bounced out on stage, grabbed the mike, and punched the air:
My Sharia Amour
Hot enough for Gulf emirs
My Sharia Amour
But I’m the guy she really fears. . . .
The audience seemed wary, and an alarming number appeared to be reaching into their robes. But I ploughed on:
My Sharia Amour
Pretty little thing in her chador
One of only four that I beat raw
How I wish that I had five
.
There was a momentary silence, just long enough for me to start backing upstage nervously.
And then the crowd went wild! The guys in the balcony cheered deliriously and hurled their machetes across the orchestra pit, shredding my pants. An Afghan wedding party grabbed their semi-automatics and blew out the chandeliers, sending them hurtling to the aisle, where they killed a Japanese camera crew. Tough luck, fellers, but that’s what happens when you get between me and my audience.
I took my usual seat with the celebrity judges, in between
Baywatch
hunk David Hasselhoff and Princess Michael of Kent. Lorraine Kelly said: “And now, ladies and gentlemen, let’s give our panel a really big hand!” A really big hand landed on the table with a dull thud, courtesy of a Saudi prince in the royal box.
“How’d they like you?” I asked Princess Michael.
“Well, by the end of ‘Man, I Feel Like a Woman,’ I had the crowd with me all the way. But I shook ’em off at Kaduna.”
“Who’s the bloke next to you?”
“Oh, he’s a judge.”
I rolled my eyes. “Well,
duh
!”
“No, I mean, he’s a real judge. He’s some Fulani big shot who’s here to decide who gets stoned.”
“And which mother of a Mick Jagger love-child is on the panel this year?”
“That’s Marsha Hunt. Had an affair with him in the late Sixties.”
The small talk was somewhat stilted. “Have you ever been stoned?” asked the judge. Marsha tittered.
Princess Michael explained that the fellow on Marsha’s left was Alhaji Abdutayo Ogunbati, the country’s leading female genital mutilator, there to ensure every contestant was in full compliance, and next to him was Hans Blix, there to ensure every involuntary clitorectomy was in accordance with UN clitorectomy inspections-team regulations.
I glanced at my watch. “For crying out loud, when are they going to raise the curtain?”
“They
have
raised the curtain,” said David. “Those are the girls.”
I peered closer at the shapeless line of black cloth, and he was right: there they all were, from Miss Afghanistan to Miss Zionist Entity.
I sighed. “How long till the swimsuit round?”
“This
is
the swimsuit round,” said David.
Years after writing that column, I’d be on stage somewhere or other talking about honor killings or some other cheery aspect of women’s “rights” in the Muslim world, and afterwards somebody would always come up and say, “Oh, I thought you were going to break into ‘My Sharia Amour.’” So, eventually, I thought, hey, why not? And so I did. The arrangement’s varied over the years, and I’m usually kept company these days by a largely silent burqa-sheathed female purporting to be my third wife. The lyrics have evolved from show to show, too. But this is the version performed at Steynamite! in Toronto on April 24, 2012, as the instrumental intro begins:
Yeah, like to get a little mellow romance going here at the Metro Centre.
This one goes out to all the lovers here tonight. C’mon, Toronto, smooch along with me . . .
My Sharia Amour
She’s hot enough for Gulf emirs (yeah!)
My Sharia Amour
But I’m the cat she really fears
My Sharia Amour
Got her from an imam in Lahore
One of only four wives I beat raw
How I wish that I had five
Dig that burqa
This chick’ll take away your breath
But don’t even glance
Or I’ll have to have her stoned to death
My Sharia Amour
I won her like the Jews won the Six-Day War
Back when I was only thirty-four
And she was entering Grade Five
A-la-la-la-la-la
A-la-la-la-la-la-la
Take it, baby . . .
CHILD BRIDE [muffled, from within burqa]:
A-la-la-la-la-la
A-la-la-la-la-la-la
Beautiful!
And tomorrow
For our wedding anniversary
We’ll renew our vows
With a second clitorectomy
(Hey, what can I tell you? She wanted somethin’ special.)
My Sharia Amour
She’s not a bit like you, you filthy infidel whore
We honor-killed her cousin on the second floor
I hope this one can stay alive
A-la-la-la-la-la
A-la-la-la-la-la-la
A-la-la-la-la-la
A-la-la-la-la-la-la
She’s my cutie, for sure
My Sharia Amour!
Who loves you, baby?
[
Child bride throws up her hands, shrieks, and runs off stage left]
Maclean’s
, December 14, 2009
THE OTHER DAY
, George Jonas passed on to his readers a characteristically shrewd observation gleaned from the late poet George Faludy: “No one likes to think of himself as a coward,” wrote Jonas. “People prefer to think they end up yielding to what the terrorists demand, not because it’s safer or more convenient, but because it’s the right thing. . . . Successful terrorism persuades the terrorized that if they do terror’s bidding, it’s not because they’re terrified but because they’re socially concerned.”
This is true. Resisting terror is exhausting. It’s easier to appease it, but, for the sake of your self-esteem, you have to tell yourself you’re appeasing it in the cause of some or other variant of “social justice.” Obviously, it’s unfortunate if “Canadians” and “Americans” and “Irishmen” get arrested for plotting to murder the artists and publishers of the Danish Mohammed cartoons, but that’s all the more reason to be even more accommodating of the various “sensitivities” arising from the pervasive Islamophobia throughout western society. Etc.
Yet this psychology also applies to broader challenges. By way of example, take a fluffy feature from a recent edition of Britain’s
Daily Mail
: “It’s Barbie in a Burqa,” read the headline. Yes, as part of her fiftieth-anniversary celebrations, “one of the world’s most famous children’s toys, Barbie, has been given a makeover.” And, in an attractive photo shoot, there was Barbie in “traditional Islamic dress,” wearing full head-to-toe lime-green and red burqas. At least, I’m assuming it was Barbie. It could have been GI Joe back there for all one can tell from the letterbox slot of eyeball meshing.
But Britain’s biggest Barbie fan, Angela Ellis, was thrilled. “Bring it on, Burqa Barbie,” she said. “I think this is a great idea. I think this is really important
for girls, wherever they are from, they should have the opportunity to play with a Barbie that they feel represents them.”
Well, Barbie is fifty. And at an age when Katie Cougar—er, Couric—America’s all-time champion network news-ratings limbo-dancer, is being photographed ill-advisedly doing the lambada at the Christmas office party, there is perhaps something to be said for belatedly mothballing your seventy-six-inch plastic bust. Or as the blogger Laura Rosen Cohen put it: “Great news: that bitch Barbie has finally reverted.” “And there’s no need for expensive accessories like books or cars or a life,” added Tim Blair of Sydney’s
Daily Telegraph
, “because Barbie in a Bag isn’t allowed to leave her home unless accompanied by a male relative (Mullah Ken, sold separately).”
Mullah Ken? I’m not so sure about that. Given the longtime rumors, Ken’ll be lucky not to find himself crushed under one of those walls the Taliban put up for their sodomite-rehabilitation program. You’ll be glad to know the dolls are anatomically accurate: Burqa Barbie has no clitoris, and, just like Mohamed Atta on the morning of September 11, Ken’s genital area is fully depilated.
But we mean-spirited types are in the minority. The other day, I was watching, as one does, a German lingerie ad, for Liaison Dangereuse. It began with a naked woman—bit blurry and soft-focus, but you could see she had her hair in a towel and everything else in nothing at all, and there were definite glimpses of shapely bottom, the swell of her bosom, and whatnot. All very Continental.