Foodie Imposter

Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye all!
         The first ripe locally grown pomidoro, the first paradajse or tommy tomato has been consumed today here in old Melbourne town with thin sesame crackers, marinated olives and likewise marinated Greek cheese.
         Yasu! Wonderful. A universe of associations.
         What a change from the equally wonderful but radically different fare on the equator! And from the transported, refrigerated like/unlike produce.
         For the last two days a green apple lightly flushed with rose has been plucked from sun-dappled branch at Bab's as an appetiser before lunches. The apple tree in the front yard there has been dropping its fruit for some time now, the large bulbs lining the gutter, the footpath and lawn either side. Bab had always said the tree was a beauty, only being misplaced by the letter-box and overhanging the footpath. Just too tempting for passers-by. We would watch them sometimes from indoors helping themselves, neighbours from the surrounding streets who will remain nameless. (Neighbours within the street waited to be gifted each year). Like the principled vegetarian Lowell mentions in his famous poem, Arthur next door even picked the fallen fruit from the lawn and cut out the wormed segments.
         To the suggestion that we pick the fruit at this tail end of March Arthur felt, No, it was too early. Let the fruit ripen some.
         It was the lawn man cutting at the Jankovic's who thought otherwise. They're falling anyway. Best to pick them before the birds get to them, the little tubby suggested.
         It was only later preparing to wash the apples at the kitchen sink in the Studio that the earlier heat of the day was noticed in the orb. Remarkable. It came with a slight physical shock to the cheek. Something like being tenderly patted by Grandma; young newborn chicks might not have been a whole lot warmer. Delightful. Sun kissed no exaggeration. Remember Paris raced for such-like in order to win the famed beauty
         After the tropics of course it was a startling contrast. The apples from Cold Storage or Giant had been the standby in Singapore, at $2.95 a luxury that always brought comment from the cashier. Picture book shape and colour had one chewing that fruit warily and guiltily.
         Slowly, by the strangest, most bizarre osmosis, one was turning into a half pie Food Writer (more than Foodie per se); this morning a submission to a Canadian lit. mag. for their call-out on the theme. Might just be able to wangle sometime perchance.
         ….And news just in from the States: young Amos Ye granted asylum in the US for well-founded fear of persecution in his homeland. Three cheers for the resistance from the US Immig. authorities to the Trumpet. Lad punched in the face on the street in Singapore and the miscreant let off with wrist slap; mid-teens brought to court in leg irons; kept in solitary so many weeks, the author's correspondent recalled. Fair grounds. Bloody rogue state! the older dissident opined on the matter.
         Missing Komala Vilas already here, where young Amos was encountered last year and bought lunch. Best of luck to the young rebel!

Easy Afternoon

At the end of Anderson Street opposite the old Cop Shop, Willis & (fortuitously) Anderson name of the place. Veggie wrap & cafe without the sweet potato on the side $14 plus. Mag. & Fbook tattooed dog-lover boys & girls, both genders working out. Only a single couple duelling phones, the remainder conversing without. Speech rhythms that almost certainly the young nephew and niece will have adopted now remote as outer terrestrials. On the far table the odd man out accentuated; within the scrum itself it might have been utterly impossible to get the food down. Cloud architecture at the bottom of the street and rounding from behind the old Greek neighbour of Aven's bearded now, still wandering with his prayer beads. Unlikely the man could pace by these tables without them through his fingers. A stranger in his own neighbourhood not ashamed to crane his head down into the gatherings as he passed. And hot on his heels suddenly Frank Noonan with perfectly matching grey straggly beard, much longer hair, rocking up to the street bench with his bag of fries. Dimmies first guess, but it might have been tatters. Last six years Frank hasn't lost any weight, the routine of the Defence Department office clobber hard to shuck even weekends. Unidentifiable newspaper which outta use is kept clasped to the chest with a wing arm. The brother immediately before or after Frank was the achiever at school, prefect and model student - likely got himself a wife and moved out somewhere. After polishing off his pack waddling off back toward the station and no stopping at the pub for Frank. The ABC in the evenings, favourite serials, slow mornings and sunny afternoons out. The royal comfort of the lazy day recalled Bab's appreciation of her life in the new country: none from either her rod or dom had ever lived in such fine style. (Rod was house of birth and dom of marriage, motherhood and mature life.) Couple of dads with their baby: that did not take long at all - second sit in Yarraville. How to settle on the biological seed in such arrangements posed a question. Cat last night organized a recent start-up Sheba taxi with exclusive female drivers for young Soleil's return from her punk party. Something of the Wahhabi taken hold Downunder. Earlier Señor Niccola and Senora Teresa from two doors down were caught in their front-yard, eighty-three the former; latter recovering from her heart op. and subsequent fall. A lawyer and CFA manager with company car next door, other professionals nearby too. No more piss-pots roundabout, suggested Sen. Nic with the accompanying gesture for the line at the pub pointing percy at the porcelain.... Younger dad singing along to the Beach Boys, or else one of their later clones. Not wishing to be nosey, unwilling to catch eyes, focused on the pages, it was only later that the size of the dads' pram was noticed. Oh dear yes! Aha.... Lads knew exactly what they were about, organized their arrangement with aplomb: a pair of babies co-ordinated, one only slightly older than the second. Brothers of a kind.

Reprobate (published mid-July23 NWWQ in a sequence of three, titled These I Commend To Thee)

The drunken old street-wreck had been treading on exceedingly thin ice lately. (Not such a stretch on this portion of the equator in fact, where there were numerous rinks and sculptural fantasias of various kinds.) Emboldened recently, the man had been stopping at the tables to chat with the regular punters, the diners and tea-sippers. Children strongly drew Rep, extended families, proper scarves & whatnot. Most endured the man’s blather patiently and well enough; kindly and allowing many. But of course there was always a fine line, inevitably. In the morning he had approached the table while Mr. Ee, the old agarwood trader, had sat for a while. God damn it! one thing. God damn it! something else. Watching from the side the burly prata-maker had come out from his hot-plate, snarling and ready to pounce. In this case the Wreck had quickly calmed down and in fact made himself useful. Discovering Mr. Ee was over for a pack of the untaxed, he was just the man to oblige, ready and willing. What was the preference? Name your brand. Indo Garam. Marlboro Red. What?...Twenty minutes later there it was, duly delivered. ($7, one added for services rendered. Mr. Ee had established that from the start.) For the evening however the man had picked the wrong table. No nose at all for the matter. Elderly stout scarves, pious and proper, sitting in council; they were unwilling to tolerate any unmannerly intrusion. One saw from three rows back the temperature rapidly rising. God damn it! God damn it! Wheeling away from the table and rounding back the Wreck, flaying his arms; flapping. All was not well and far from it. Coming down to unburden it was clear the complaints had wounded the man; badly and cruelly wounded. Spittle flying in his delivery. (What was noticed now too in the evening was the dye. A recent application, given during the course of the day.) God damn it! Damn it! They call me stupid!...Am I stupid?...Wheeling and spluttering; tottering while somehow keeping his feet. Flaying windmill arms; chicken wings flapping. It was best to remove the cup from the line of fire. The spectacle this time outside the eatery drew Zahruddin, the goodly manager at Al Wadi. An understanding, fair man Rudd, with whom the Reprobate had had trouble before. Told to move off. The pair jousting, holding their respective ground. It made an unfortunate spectacle. At the pleading sign from the side Zahruddin graciously withdrew. He was stupid was he, the Wreck? Is that what everyone thought, then?... Well, granted he had only his O Level, maybe that was stupid. (In  classrooms school-teachers often confronted such doldrums from confused teens.) Cripes man! No. No. Not stupid. That was unfair and uncalled for. No-one had a right to that language. (Many roundabout on Geylang Road of course fell far short of even the O Level, as the Wreck knew well enough. In the meritocratic Republic the distinctions ran through the community with military order.) Dribbles by this stage. Tears what was more, full and flowing. Unrestrained tears from a man in what, his early-sixties. Chap had begun stealing from his father in early teens, the Reprobate had confessed some months before. And progressed from there. Twenty-something times in the lock-up; errors freely owned and duly paid. This Reprobate had never accepted a teh, nor requested alms. Once he had offered the present of a broken winged angel he had been given by someone or other. When the Reprobate had discovered the significance of the figure, he immediately threw the piece into the gutter, where it shattered into pieces. I'm a Muslim, God damn it!.. And the fellow did hold to that with some firmness. All men searched for god, the Wreck had offered the private insight some months earlier. Whatever their profession, whatever their rank or standing, that was the chief endeavour of man. So memorably did pronounce the Wreck of this Geylang street on one particular occasion; a chap who ranged from the Haig Market down to Changi corner and not much further. Two hundred meter ambit. (That morning he had crossed to the larger Malay market for the fags. Where though might he have obtained the hair colour was a wonder.) Saturday night spluttering at the table, leaning close, listing. The tears issuing from the turned eye pitiful to behold. The right socket seemed to have the depth of an inexhaustible well. (Street fight you had to conclude, what else?) Difficult to settle. Hearing himself quoted on the matter of human yearning might have registered and helped in the present case. Helped pacify. Some slow, slow simmering. The storm slowly subsided. In the finish there was safe journey wished the mat salleh traveler, this white guy who had become a fixture in the quarter and soon needed to leave. Among the others of that community that had been accidentally found in that back corner of the city-state, the Reprobate too would be sorely missed.

     

                                                                                                                  Geylang Serai, Singapore

 

Disarmed Warriors (In the Mall)

  OH 
  MY 
DAYS

speckled white tower on red borne by a Chinese ahma blaring into the street more than the old love knew. Shopping trolley pulled behind and hoicked over the Onan Road steps; recent dye and eyebrow tattoo it looked. Buoyant easy stride swivelling her head as she cast over the tables and stalls.... By contrast the figure of Omar yesterday so poorly disguised by his neat, maid-laundered persiflage—white long-sleeve possibly even starched; likely the woman had polished the shoes and certainly ironed the trousers. (After three or four maids that failed to meet expectations the current was quite satisfactory. The woman even needed to be encouraged with her food, both the size of in-take and the avoidance of meat and fish apparent. Finest humility and respect.) A thunder strike from the newspaper that killed two joggers in Malaysia mentioned by Omar in the walk up the road. (In memory Omar had the event taking place locally.) Poof! No more. How many million was that chance? chuckled Omar, mouth askew. Fourth stage cancer was another nightmare fate awaiting some Misfortunates—morphine and the finish of that show, apropos of nothing. 

Having gotten off the bus Omar had been unable to catch his friend's long strides, a call on the phone needed. Going that way? Omar would come along to the hotel and proceed from there to his Arab Association in the next lorong. It was open, yes; normal office hours someone always at the desk. 

Thirty-seven years school-teaching, eight money-changing and a stint driving a cab. A couple of other half-hearted side-lines failed to amount to anything and almost a loss of a pile in a bad loan.

O starosti! Sramotno oruzje!

Oh Age! Shameful weaponry!

For Montenegrin hill-tribesmen the same as for desert Bedouin. (Transplanted the same.)

The old ahma’s billboard took one back to earliest days in our street kitchens with tea-pots steaming and biscuits on a plate. There may have been some currency in early television comedy skits featuring put-upon housewives in hair-nets and unreliable husbands. 

Would a single person in this republic on the Equator have the faintest idea on the exclamation? One single solitary? It did not appear an especially worn or faded tee.

Publication: "Hindu Jazz"

A couple of weeks ago an Indian online journal called The Criterion published a piece from this blog that dates back to the early acquaintance with the Indian diaspora here. After a decent interval I will re-post "Hindu Jazz."

Meanwhile here it is, a longer piece near 5,000 words: www.the-criterion.com/V8/n1/Pavle.pdf

Cruising Forty Years Later

Couple of Florida Viets drab street-wear asking directions at the Al Wadi table. Do you speak English?... (First a face like that bending from the pavement with such a question.) How might they get to the city? What was there to see? Something to recommend for a one day stay…. They knew of.... forearms erected and a horizontal spar spanning across the top. Ya, ya, Marina Bay Sands. Trying not to be a party-pooper squirming, no call for that for nice people. (Later the woman had the iconic wonder up on her iPhone.) Jocular warning to be sure keep their money in their pockets at the casino, unlikely as it was they were those kinda suckers. The morrow was a cruise ship. Ah, cruise?... They were going on a ship cruise?... That was what they were doing. But, surprise-surprise, not around the local islands. Dubai eighteen days!... Seriously. There would be a casino on-board too, yes, the chap knew; all cruisers had them, he likewise knew. The picture here before you did not tell the story at all and far from it. Pair had left '75, grateful to America, considered themselves very lucky and reluctant to call out any racism, all part and parcel. Nonetheless it was pleasing to hear unexpected responses from a fellow migrant, though he certainly did not look like one. Pretty decent English both, surprised to be immediately picked. Husband was a little less accomplished: let's say twelve when he climbed outta the boat at the Thai or Malaysian camps looking like a drowned rat; she was four years younger carried in arm by an uncle and the meeting in the food queue….

         ….Was Le Van Thai still going strong Downunder there, liver holding out? Continuing with his placid tropical-coloured pictures he painted for the local market that gave no hint whatever of what he had been through? (Showing them for the first time Le was surprised to hear the point of view.) And Nguyen with his PhD going to Arkansas to marry the lady running the Nail stores, was he still wearing his pyjamas around the streets of Footscray? 

         Pair here had been down to Oz, found a good place with good people down there. They had been very good to their people, the woman had heard. (Mal Fraser at a time when the Jesuit Abbott was still learning his catechism.)

         Trump. Oh well. Couldn't be blamed too bad. (Hardly after what they had endured.)

         They knew of the Viet quarter out back at Joo Chiat which they had passed through the night before. With the dark the woman had gotten a bit concerned about the bars and karaoke joints featuring their compatriots. (No Soliciting On the Premises.) Over in Florida one would no doubt need to keep wits about you, even Viets.

Gaming Culture (Photos & Books)

North African and Middle Eastern refugees in the Balkans in the World Press Photos. Worst had to be the Syrian father fixed on the dead young daughter lying across his knees. In that group there were injured children in makeshift hospital wards and in another series children sleeping in tents in the forests. 

            The others viewing avoided any possible sharing of reactions. There was nothing to be said of course.

Exiting the basement portion of the show, unexpectedly there was more on ground level by the escalator, lesser sport and quirky matter. Something else too that had not been noticed earlier near the gift shop.

The vending machine by the girls at the desk was not in fact drink or nibbles. Wrapped mystery purchases rather in some kind of series, all of a size, $19 each.

Unusual. How did that work? Key in the code for the particular item… 

Blind Man’s Bluff or Pin the Tail on the Donkey. You would unpack the surprise present to yourself on the bus home.

Young  Kenny operated Books Actually out at hipsterville Tiong Bahru, where they had tried to get World Heritage listing for the earliest of the housing towers. Kenny had become a local celebrity, photographed numerous times in the Life! section of the newspaper. 

Crammed with all the titles like a candy store BA; this venture was set to tease book-buyers in a whole new way. 

Innovation was the mantra in Singapore. Automation. Robotics. Staying ahead of the curve.

The jaded reading public needed to have their interest piqued; colourful cover product only gained so much traction. 

 

 

National Gallery Singapore, 2017

The old 2G phone bought in Jogja will be inoperable here from April. (A couple of weeks ago Nancy Ong was good enough to gift her mother's old Lenovo.) Needless to say, no camera on the slim-fit Nokia. A couple of young Malay girls manning the gifts at the National Art Museum on Bras Basah Road obliged.
Wrapped mystery purchases in some kind of series all of a size @ $19 ea. Key in the code and one was yours, courtesy of Books Actually. Young Kenny operated BA out at newly emerging hipsterville Tiong Bahru, a minor celebrity himself who has been photographed in the Life! section of the newspaper a number of times. (Doppleganger of our Readings Marko Rubbo down in Melbourne, who bought books in the States unsighted by the crate-load. Or did some years ago.)
Innovation the mantra here in Singapura. Robotics. Staying ahead of the curve. Adapt or you're dead.

Fast Faith

"Christian" in fact. (Free?... he had asked when he twigged.) Having noticed the veg. meal the man had his hopes raised a second. Lenten Fast in his own case, for the full forty days what was more; every year the same. Helmet cut in spiky salt and pepper. Shirts never tees; shoes never sandals. Large watch-face and single gold band. Was there an occasional stud in the ear?... Cousin Milan the other night at Vivo City was fasting through Lent too, three days up until then and see how far he could take it. After the bryani, three veg. and dahl, Milan jumped up to get himself another plate, white rice this time and three again. Through the day he had not eaten, nor even supper the night before, part of Milan’s shot-gun attempt to deal with diabetes. At the moment what was working for Milan was  something he had discovered online that was bringing his blood sugar count down to 6 - 6.5. An egg either boiled or steeped in apple cider vinegar so many minutes, morning and night. That practice however was a break of the Lenten Fast. Seeking absolution for his circumstances, Milan had asked his wife back home to pray at their altar to St. Vasil, explaining the reason for the failing. Either a prayer at their altar in the house, or else a visit to the Saint's shrine out in the hills above Niksic. Aboard ship there were regular prayers before his icon of the Saint that always traveled with him. Some months prior on an earlier visit to Singapore Milan had answered a question on religion, saying all sailors believed in god. In years past Milan and his branch of the family had been stout Communists, those of the kind that had maintained some of the old traditions…. A couple of weeks before the dapper Tamil, a trusted employee manning the register at Har Yassin Fridays, had again approached the table to chat. During the course of that conversation the man had wanted to show an interesting book he had come upon. The title seemed to escape him, it was on his phone was it? One moment, one moment…. An author of some description: conversation to suit, something up his alley. A literary chap was a challenge. Meeting the Tamil on the street, in Little India once and somewhere else again, the man had bowled up close and almost rapped on the lapel of your imaginary suit offering, Hello, remember me don’t you? Chest puffed and head raised back…. Couldn't find what he was after. There were the usual photographs and videos on the phone. Wading through. Flick-flick-flick. Unwilling to give up. Ah! Here it was, yes. Yes. Got it. Turning the phone out in order to show a handsome book sitting on a table, hardback carrying its title in bold caps that covered almost the entire cover. What was that? Everything That Men Know About Women? 36 point Courier if this author knew anything. Read this one?... Know it do you?... All in confusion…. This was a volume from his own library? a recommendation offered? opening gambit for conversation on a pet subject?... Ah. Ah. Well, perhaps no. Not this particular item. Not exactly, but.... the field was—. Fellow disallowed further. (An author needed to have some acquaintance with famous tomes, presumably world famous best sellers. Case in point looked likely. Had this one been sighted on the shelves in the bookshops among the Dales, Deepaks, Sri Gurus, the commentaries on the bible, the Koran, the Buddhist holy scriptures, the Vedas, the biz strategies, art, music and architecture compendiums for the condominiums in one handy volume? It was some market in Singapore….) Smiling Tamil had one over you here. This was one text you might not know at all, not the faintest clue. Gap in the knowledge and don’t pretend otherwise. Smirking. Man bending to show you more.... Hang on. Look here…. This was not a photograph in fact. This was a movie, a video the chap had taken a liking to from promo material? Phantom hand on screen had lifted the volume from the polished mahogany and the thick matte pages were begun to be flicked. Oh! Dear me. What?... Empty pages. One blank after another. There was nothing there, not a line nor single word.... A good hundred and more scant voids. There! Ha!... What did men know about women after all? This chap did not know, nor profess he knew, to be sure. Pleading complete ignorance. Man was indeed on the point of giving up altogether on the whole pursuit, —hands thrown into the air. What do women want I don't know!... Hopeless. Sad state of affairs. Some lovely had made mincemeat outta the poor sorry sod. There could be no front maintained Chap had striven his hardest; still not good enough…. Meanwhile the fast, prayers and Sunday services. The cathedral in the city centre had recently re-opened after a multi-million dollar renovation, approved in Rome presumably. Loving restoration performed by a large foreign work-crew. The last two and more years proceeding. A recent photograph in the newspaper had shown an item of garden sculpture that had been introduced into the grounds featuring a homeless figure covered by a blanket on a European garden bench in darkened bronze. A week ago it had been sighted on a pass toward a gallery further along. Ah yes, there it was. And in fact adjacent stood many other figures too, a long row along the garden bed, produced in the same artist’s workshop. Petite wing-stretched angels landed from the clouds, flocking together. The host faced the newly restored place of worship alongside the wayfarer, guarding the Misfortunate more or less. Strange decision of the newspaper photographer. Had the picture editor decided some kind of cropping?

Herta Müller Come-Down

Not often one comes across an author of stature who is almost repellent. One short book makes it difficult to judge, but in the example of Nobel winner Herta Müller’s “The Passport”—Der Mensch ist ein Fasan auf der Wels—it is not saying too much.

            The rude provincials of the Banat in Romania that people this book seem to draw Müller’s contempt. One thinks of Naipaul’s condescension for the benighted Indians of the Sub-continent, the Caribbean and others elsewhere caught on what is conceived as the wrong side of history and the march of civilization. Certainly Müller seems to have no real interest in these people, they are cardboard sketches of figures in narrow life-stations marooned in a nondescript backwater behind the Iron Curtain. After the vitality and startlingly insightful voices of Svetlana Alexievich’s witnesses the contrast could not be stronger.

            At the mid-point of the novel the tavern scene carried echoes of The Wasteland, without anything of Eliot’s partial musical mitigation.

            Reading currently in the midst of the desperate waves of refugees too at all points of the global compass the focus on a father’s selling of his daughter for a passport seems wrongheaded and complacent condemnation.

            Reading in the midst of all the trafficking of women in Singapore and the wider region contempt at any level seems misguided. The profit motive, greed and exploitation in the era of Trump’s super models certainly calls for another kind of attention. (Published in the Reagan/Thatcher era gives context.)

            In Indonesia fathers’ offering their daughters for short-term marriages of a month is reportedly still to be found in areas where the new affluence has not reached. A young Sumatran from outlying Lampung told a couple of weeks ago of daily such hire in her region.

            Eventually a short chapter putting the “prostitution” in some perspective arrived in the treatment of the main character Windisch’s wife recalling her entrapment in Russia during the war.

            The poetry of Müller’s narrative cited as a feature by the Nobel Committee seemed almost entirely absent to this reader, at least in translation. (Martin Chalmers, Serpent’s Tail.)

NB. “The Hunger Angel” is perhaps Mueller’s high achievement, found by chance in a Melb thrift shop 2 years later and devoured sentence by sentence.

Wives and Devotions

The library attendant divorced by the Hadrami madu trader Mr. Syed off to a free class upstairs on the corner with a friend in tow. The ustad there ministered without commercial motive, only a token of appreciation made at end of class. Good guy, every Sunday they come over for him. Once a week was not enough either, the friend declared…. But then they could study further in their own time, the Hadith and the commentaries, right? (One did know how to conduct these conversations after almost six years.) Oh yes, indeed. Yes…. The social outing and sisterhood was worth something however. (A wild guess would be the friend was a divorcee herself; nothing of widowhood hanging about her.) The separation from Mr. Syed had passed with little pain two years ago.  I don’t care. Let him go his way—something like conveyed up in the stacks at the library at the time. For a term the pair remained friends, taking lunch together at Geylang Serai, Ex. continuing to assist with the honey trade. On his side Mr. Syed still full of bouncing beans, the flame quite unquenched. (Gatal, itching the Malays term that restless keenness.) There had been a bevy of replacement candidates for Mr. Syed’s choosing. Photographs frankly displayed. As one would expect for an Arab, all veiled, demure and devout ladies caught in various malls beside posters, floral arrangements and shiny escalators. The prevailing frumpiness was surprising for an old lad like cheeky Mr. S., bright-eyed player that he was. One of the candidates, a Malay from Johor, clearly stood out, head and shoulders above the others. Divorcee. Some of the women were widows, but most divorcees like Mr. Syed. Twenty-five plus years age difference in the case of the Johor gave Mr. S. pause. That needed to be weighed judiciously and realistically. In the end sense had reigned, the KL option winning out. Understandably. One was asking for trouble otherwise Mr. Syed well knew. A good marriage, all in order, Mr. S. reported back. Nonetheless the messaging with Johor had continued. Mr. Syed had shown a draft poem that was giving him bother. The woman had written in poetic terms herself of deep-felt disappointment; Mr. Syed had shown that mail too proudly. Conforming to the regular plot the correspondence discovered. Snooping got the new wife what she deserved. Mr. S. did not mince matters: his heart was divided. How could the pair continue in the nicely regulated way they had quickly established if Mr. Syed was unhappy? The wife should understand. All was provided for the woman; nothing lacking. (Mr. S. had made his case to her with perfect frankness.) The woman in the picture on Mr. Syed’s phone appeared years younger than fifty. With the absence in JB further developments were unknown as yet. Did the library-attendant Ex. know of this pretty pass? As in Jane Austen novels with the vicars, the women here in Geylang Serai often develop serious crushes on the more charming ustads delivering the knowledge on the Prophet, on the hardship of Islam’s foundation years, the subsequent rapid success and glory, the troubles, perversions and misunderstandings. The current horrors of course. (All of these community leaders were carefully vetted and monitored by the authorities of course.) One heard glowing reports; photographs commonly displayed, honied voices reported. Deep learning, tender compassion and humility particularly impressed.