Twitter can be so cruel. From behind anonymous handles and malicious hashtags, the Twittersphere cruelled well meaning British activist Ashgar Bukhari. The story, in its sordid fullness, is here.
I don’t know Mr Bukhari, but I’m on his side on this one. For more than twenty years I’ve been pondering the mysterious phenomenon of the missing socks. You will know what I mean. Two pairs of dirty, sweaty socks get put into the Bermuda Triangle that is my washing machine and dryer combo, but only one of the two comes out. It’s a mysteriously deep and veiled truth of the cosmos, that I, and greater minds, have pondered for many years, now solved, by the ingenuity and breath-takingly forthright intelligence of Mr Bukhari.
Clearly, what has been happening in my humble household all these years is the same thing that has afflicted that of Ashgar, and so many other unsuspecting citizens over the years (nay centuries) – the nocturnal, thieving Jew. This rare species comes, not for the pair of shoes, not for the pair of socks, or dare we suggest it, not for the pair of knickers, but the one shoe, the one sock, the (well, one) pair of knickers. He comes unseen, undetected, in the dead of the night, to take, not the pair of shoes, which might be functional, since he could actually wear a pair of shoes, or sell them, or and put them to some other use – but he wants only one of the pair, inexplicably leaving one behind.
Until now, the reason for this has eluded the great minds of the universe – Plato is strangely silent on the matter, Aristotle has nothing to say, Mein Kampf is clueless – but all of that is now changed, transformed! Bringing to bear the wisdom of the centuries old Islamic culture and tradition (around five or six centuries later than Christianity and about twenty or so centuries later than Judaism – but who’s counting?), Ashgar Bukhari points to the explanation that has hitherto evaded civilisation. The thieving Jew. Who comes not for the pair, but for only one of the pair; not for personal gain, and not with a quick sale at Cash Converters in mind; but in a much more sinister vein, to intimidate, to inflict psychological trauma, to make Ashgar, and presumably Muslims everywhere, feel vulnerable and unsafe in their own homes – a bit like the good citizens of Mosul might feel now, or school children in northern Nigeria, but we digress…
The shoe stealing Jew is not a phenomenon without parallel in history. They (the Jews) stole the whole of Palestine after all, so why would they not stoop to stealing one of your shoes, one of your socks, or, even more shockingly, to rearranging the photos on your mantelpiece, just so you know ‘they’ have been there, in your house? It’s a well known tactic, if you are a paranoid Muslim activist like Ashgar, readily believed, no doubt, by his publicists at the BBC and Guardian, only too eager to accept at face value any claim of ‘Islamophobia’ and / or Jewish malfeasance vis a vis Muslims. And it’s all factual, of course. In the same way the ‘running of Jew’ in Borat’s Kazakhstan is a real life, annual event.
So, let us all say with Ashgar Bukhari – give me back my shoe / sock – you thieving Jew!