Stopped at a nearby garage/convenience store this morning.
At the counter two customers – 50ish white men, complete with beer guts and crap tattoos – discuss the recent events in Tunisia. Lots of hang them-shoot them-flog them-bomb-the-bastards rhetoric.
Meanwhile the Turkish proprietor keeps an admirably blank and neutral face.
I pay for my petrol and as I turn to leave one of them says to the other: “I’d never go on holiday to a fucking shitty Muslim country anyway. You never know what’s gonna kick off!”
Well, you know me; I do my best but I’m weak. I can’t help myself. So…
…I chip in with “Damn right, pal. Me neither”
He responds eagerly. “Yeah? Nice one, mate!”
“Absolutely,” I continue. “Who wants to spend their holiday worrying about the Yanks bombing the shit out of you and your kids? Mind you, if all your kind have a similar view, at least I’d be guaranteed a bigot-free holiday zone so you know; swings and roundabouts, eh?”
Silence.
As I leave I catch the faintest trace of a smirk on the proprietor’s face.
Harry Paterson 
One reply on “Turkish Delight”
The media commentary on these events fuels the sort of discussion you heard. I notice one of the tabloids ran a front page ‘send in the SAS to sort out the jihadis’ piece yesterday. Reminded me of all the gung-ho “send our boys in” crap spewed out by the redtops in the Spring/Summer of 1982. And the BBC seem determined to focus on the spectacular at the expense of the informative – they are doing very little to get to grips with the underlying complexities of these appalling events. And, for me, they can’t hide behind the excuse that the coverage is respectful to the victims and survivors. At one end of the coverage we have tragedy voyeurism and, more worrying, at the other we have the ‘five minute hate’ type stuff that’s already leading to attacks on people, cemeteries… Anyway, on a positive note, well done Mr P! (Andy H)
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