She draws a line some think is sharp:
"Islam", she says, against "the West."
"Sons of Allah" versus NATO
She doesn't mention us: the Rest.

The Rest who make up four full fifths
of Man, who don't merely rotate
The mooted Muslim/Christian axis,
Who don't share either pole's fate.

Her screeching screed does not permit
For catholic advance of mind;
Each bears ancestral vaunts and sins
As tribal marks that score his kind.

Islam condemned for what it fires
in the febrile minds of men,
And worse: each Muslim person's worth
Weighed out against a long-stilled pen.

She crows of European Dante
Shakespeare, Da Vinci, Beethoven.
"Whom can you hoist to gird your pride
You wretched Muslim brethren?"

And I, you see, of Igbo stock,
Of Catholic familial creed,
Feel every bit of this broad blow
And its attempt upon my seed.

I am indeed American,
Come so through my own enterprise,
Graced by the same constitution
By which she measures to despise.

I came here because liberty
And equal opportunity
Were purloined from my native land
By Muslims in the polity.

Those self-same Muslims were installed
To dominate beyond their land
By what cruel agent would you think?
The West's own avaricious hand.

And yet for succour here I came
The West is mine and I do claim
Good Ovid, Homer, Yeats and Bach
Though little might we share of name.

And also mine is all the greatness
Wrought by noble Saracens:
Batuta, Kwarizmi, Khayyam
Whose math (not verse!) was foremost ken.

Euclid crossed the Sahara
In revered books of Arab trade;
Rhazes looked towards Galen,
And all mixed in an Indic shade.

Yet she claims she found no Muslim
Culture through exhaustive search;
All Araby has less refinement
Than the meekest Tuscan church.

Such prejudice is silly as
Dogmatic Afrocentric schools
Or Arab chauvinism: All
Who measure culture such are fools.

At her call to bigotry
Too many scholars will delight
Depressed by dark skins in their classes
They'll take heart in Aryan right.

But how pathetic such ambition
Which is satisfied at birth;
If their pride lies in the past
What was their point to walk the Earth?

No race can best demography:
Time is the crucible of trait.
In Western lands the pure white skin
Grows rarer at a telling rate.

And twenty million Muslim souls
Bound to this land--land of the free--
Do tincture its amazing growth
Which stems from its diversity.

And though she counsels holy war,
I'm confident that we shall seek
Security--and vengeance too--
With none of such a savage streak.

The poles she conjures are no more:
One Civilization remains.
The Rest has filled in all the void
Where tribalism seeks its gains.

And this is not to make excuse
For those who would disgrace their vein;
Firenze's treasures are too dear
For foetid squatters to profane.

And truly there's no savagery
To top some customs that endure
Where misanthrope Imams insist
On Sharia literal and "pure".

Yet Civil Justice calls for sanction
On culprits well identified.
No less uncouth to damn a class
In ecstasy of wrath and pride.

Those who don't denounce her froth
Are doomed to quick irrevelevance:
Her vitriolic tongue's no match
For Judgment in the future tense.

--Uche
9 July 2002