Written 9/11/2007
Bring me the head of Osama Bin Laden!
The Pentagon’s reward for OBL is $50,000,000 tax-free Dead or Alive.
No takers from 2001 to 2010
The al-Quada mastermind has responded to this offer via video inviting the West to embrace Islam or else. Faced with those two options I regretfully have to inform the world’s most wanted fugitive that I’ll have to take the ‘or else’.
Why?
I like bacon.
I like it in a BLT, spaghetti carbonara, and salads.
According to http://www.islamicinvitationcentre.com/FAQ/diet/FAQ_diet.html Islam banned pork for health reasons. Pig meat is a proven breeding ground for parasites such as Paragonimus, the sucking worm Clonnrchis Sinesis, and the deadly trichina worms reported to infect 25% of pig eaters. This may be true, however my belief for the strict prohibition of pork is that pork was so tasty that it proved a distracting temptation to true believer.
Back in the early 90s I traveled extensively through Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation. My arrival of the mega-island, Sumatra, coincided with Ramadan, the yearly festival of fasting. From dawn to dusk no restaurant were open. While respecting the Muslim festival, I didn’t think that I was included in this celebration of no-eating until trying to snack on a bus to the Batak Highlands.
Angry glares from bearded faces forced a sweet roll back into my bag. Water couldn’t pass your lips either and no one smoked kretek cigarettes. Hungry and thirsty the hours passed slowly, until the bus reached a small town 50 miles from Lake Toba.
The Muslim passengers were replaced by darker-skinned natives, who smoked like Pittsburgh steel mill before the Clean Air Act. The women stuffed their faces with a wide assortment of candies and the kids sucked on lollipops. The Muslims said nothing, for the Bataks are renowned as cannibal warriors.
As the bus climbed from the steamy tropical plain the weather grew cooler and the elation of the passengers increased with each meter gained in altitude. Soon they broke into song. The tune sounded familiar.
BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON.
Jimmy Cliff’s classic hit from THE HARDER THEY COME.
As first I thought they were reggae fans, then remember that the Batak people were Christian. This was Sunday and they were returning from church services. I sang the chorus. The people smiled broadly. A man offered me a cigarette. The clove-soaked tobacco was sweet. I stood at the open back door. The passing air felt good on my skin.
We were leaving behind the coastal plains.
Into the mountains.
Cool.
Soon ornately carved wooden houses replaced the concrete bungalows of the Muslims. My travel guide said that the peaked thatched roof symbolized the horns of a cow. A seated man offered a strip of meat. Pork.
“Babi.”
He spoke a little English. I had a good Indonesian phrase book. We laughed at my bad Bahasa. At Lake Toba Karo suggested that I stay at his guest house.
That evening his friends organized a party with a pig roasted over an open fire. We drank beer, smoked ganga, and ate sizzling pork. The stars above our heads numbered in the billions. I was too drunk to count more than five.
“Babi bagus?” Karo hacked a chunk of meat off the pig with a field machete.
“Bagus bagus.” Bahasa Indonesian had an easy rule about superlative. Repeat the word twice. The pig was good good, but I was curious about something and asked, “Why are you people Christian instead of Muslim?”
“Only make Christian for Dutch. We have other gods too.” Karo raised the machete. Fat dripped into the fire.
“But why didn’t you become Muslims?” The first wave of Islamic traders had converted millions to Allah because to the simplicity of the religion. Somehow the Batak had resisted conversion and Karo explained, “Because we like pig too much, because it tastes like babi besar.”
Babi besar?
“Big pig.”
“Yes, man is big pig. Bagus bagus.”
I had heard many men profess to homosexual proclivities, but never one to admit his devotion to the hunger that dared not speak its name. Cannibalism. The Asmat people had dined on Michael Rockefeller. The Donner party had survived a winter in the Sierra Nevada by eating their dead. Cannibalism was an abomination and Karo sensed my horror.” Not worry. No eat big pig now. Pig good now. Bagus bagus.”
Their refraining from eating a man seemed dubious, since the Batak gathered around the flickering flames stared in my direction as if I were the ultimate course. This could have been marijuana-induced paranoia, but I slipped away into the shadows and locked my door before falling asleep in my bed to the dreams of painted men licking pig-fat lips.
This evening didn’t put me off pig and I remained firmly opposed to joining the Islamic faith or any religion.
So sorry Osama. No embraces of Islam. I’ll take ‘or else’ forever, but I could use that $50,000,000.
Osama, Osama where art thou?