THE MOPPERS
The moppers complain about terror,
terror shaped by the several tales
from the Tanakh, the Bible
and now the Koran above all,
committed in the name of the Almighty.
And they repeat the sunny passages:
those in which this their Holy Book
speaks forcefully of the new light in life;
and also those in which Allah or God
shows Himself beneficent and merciful,
One that is a paragon of peace.
The moppers school their children,
children spoonfed with the ancient texts
from the Tanakh, Bible or Koran,
taken literally and declared sacred
from the very beginning to the very end.
And they suppress the seamy passages:
those in which the same Book
spouts figments of an obscure imagination;
and also those in which their sole God
is Himself a discriminator and killer,
One that urges on to violence.
The faucet of false ideas is running,
the tap of true aggression on again,
but no blame attaches to the moppers,
who are nauseated by the gall and blood.
(Is this ocean a natural phenomenon?)
Virtuously, while praying for the victims,
they keep on mopping and mopping it up
with their handkerchiefs.
Vincent van Mechelen
70.ENE-MNE
For a twin version of this poem in
Deze Taal see
De dweilers.
This parallel version makes use of the standard expression
dat is
dweilen met de kraan open in Deze Taal, which literally means
that's mopping with the faucet/tap on.
Used figuratively, it comes closest to
mopping up the ocean with a
handkerchief in
This Language, but in the present
context this expression is far inferior, because
ocean is too
exaggerated a word, and it does not tell you what this 'ocean' springs
from.
Mopping with the faucet/tap turned on perfectly conveys the idea
of what people are doing who oppose the (religious) terrorism not only
of individuals but, hopefully, of entire states as well, while not in
the least caring about the disastrous direct and/or indirect effects of
scriptures on the people causing the problem.
(Those who suffer under the terror may even be asking for
more
of the same brand of religion in the process.)
Of course, it is quite possible too that these moppers do not have the
courage to call a spade a spade.
