On silly atheists and a complete English Literature fail

Yes, it’s that time again. Rant time! Huzzah! What is it now, I hear you ask, what’s she gone and got her knickers in a twist over this time? No, it’s not all the slow people in the street getting in my way (though they still cause me spasms of rage, it’s true)…. Nor is it the man on the MTR the other day who, when the train arrived, decided to walk *around* me, as I was politely queuing and standing near the front of one of the four legitimate ‘channels’ on either side of the train doors, in some ill-advised attempt to get on the train first, during the peak of rush hour, onto a Tsuen Wan line train at Mong Kok, where the only victory he achieved was about a few pathetic centimetres of distance in front of me and the dubious honour of blocking the path of EVERY single one of the horde of about twenty people trying to get off the train so the rest of us – who were politely queuing to the side – could get on. OH no. It’s not about that. (But that was also very annoying.)

I want to rant about something which my good friend Tilda recently ranted about in a Facebook note. I read her note, and it annoyed me. I read it again and it annoyed me even more. In fact, in annoyed me so much that I even had a totally lame waking dream about it the next day, in which I was telling Tilda in person how much reading her note really annoyed me. (See? LAME.)

Here’s the original note for those who are interested:
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150424455985751

For those who can’t read the note or can’t be bothered, it’s about a teacher training workshop Tilda led at a HK secondary school which was about using drama and storytelling to teach English. As part of this session, Tilda gave the teachers an unseen poem, with no introduction or instruction, to discuss and analyse in groups in preparation for a drama exercise. The poem was “Blessing” by Imtiaz Dharker (http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english/poemscult/blessingrev2.shtml) – those of who you did the AQA English Language GCSE and studied “Poems from Other Cultures” (or “Poems from Different Cultures”, as it is now titled) may be familiar with it.

The poem is a simple one, told in free verse and split into four stanzas, and in it, Dharker narrates an incident where, in the vast, sprawling slum of Dharavi in Mumbai, in the midst of a relentlessly hot and dry summer, a municipal water pipe bursts and brings great joy to the inhabitants.

Like Tilda, I like this poem. I find it moving in its simplicity, and the final image of the “naked children” – standing apart from the “frantic hands” of the others collecting the precious drops of water, and “screaming in the liquid sun, their highlights polished to perfection, flashing light, as the blessing sings over their small bones” – always stuck with me. It simultaneously inspires dual feelings of happiness and sadness – happiness at the unrestrained excitement and joy and innocence of the children, and sadness at the fragility hinted at in the mention of their malnourished, tiny bodies, their “small bones.”

Ultimately though, this is a poem of celebration. Water is portrayed as precious (“suddenly, the sudden rush of fortune” / “silver crashes to the ground”) and a gift. The latter meaning is mainly conveyed through a series of religious images and references – the title “Blessing” and the use of the same word as metaphor in the last stanza; the metaphor of the imagined drop of water as “the voice of a kindly god”; and the description of the crowd of people gathered around the pipe as a “congregation”. Tilda already mentions in her note the fact that no ‘God’ is mentioned – it is perhaps significant that the only appearance of the word ‘god’ has a lowercase ‘g’. This merely suggests that the water is so special that it can be compared to a god – and given its life-giving qualities, that’s hardly surprising.  As for the words “blessing” and “congregation”, which have both secular and religious meanings, these simply reinforce the twin ideas of worship and celebration. The water is a precious gift that brings joy and solace to the people who, previously, had to endure unspeakably harsh conditions where “the skin cracks like a pod”.

I realise I went off on a bit of an English Lit commentary and analysis tangent there, but there’s a reason for that, as you’ll soon see.

Basically, Tilda (and later I) got annoyed at the response of one of the teachers to this poem – the only Native English Teacher at the school, a British man in his 30s from Norwich.

This is what Tilda overheard him say:

“Well it's got religious overtones and talks about 'god' and 'blessings' more than once. As an atheist, I don't think it's right. I don't agree.”

Apparently his tone when speaking these words was very negative and disgruntled.

Wow.

Seriously?

“As an atheist, I don’t think it’s right. I don’t agree.”?

…

What kind of lunacy is this? If somebody wrote that in their GCSE exam when asked to analyse and comment on religious imagery or the significance/portrayal of water in the poem “Blessing”, they would FAIL, I’m pretty sure of it.

I don’t know what annoys me more. Is it the idiotic hypersensitivity of a self-proclaimed atheist who rankles at the slightest mention of anything to do with religion, regardless- no, in spite of the context? What does he do when he overhears someone say “Oh my God!” on the street? Go over to them and say, “Oh, excuse me, your invocation of a superfluous, false deity and your consequent irrational belief in something which has no scientific basis in fact OFFENDS me. As an atheist, I don’t think it’s right. I don’t agree.”?

I bet you he’s not a pet person. Can you imagine? “Yeah I don’t like cats so much. The Egyptians used to worship them as gods, didn’t they? Oh, but I dislike dogs more, though. 'Cos, you know, dog is ‘god’ spelt backwards, and frankly, as an atheist, I don’t think it’s right. I don’t agree.”

I know that’s a bit ‘reductio ad absurdum’, but I am honestly baffled. It’s the sort of completely irrational knee-jerk reaction that I’m sure he, ironically, finds so offensive in so many religious people whom he no doubt looks down upon with sniffy, snooty disapproval and derision.

It also shows a complete failure to appreciate and understand the poem, and therefore, by extension, literature in general. All it does show is his own extremely petty and narrow prejudices – and if that is a reflection of his general attitude in life, I hate to think how that kind of negativity impacts on his English teaching and his students.

I am not religious. I would probably describe myself as an areligious agnostic – I don’t believe in or subscribe to any particular religion, but I also don’t believe that such a thing as God does not exist, because you cannot prove He/She/It does not exist any more conclusively than you can prove that He/She/It does exist. And we’re only human and we have small brains and there is, no doubt, much in this wonderful, magical universe of ours that we cannot even begin to comprehend.

Granted, I do have quite a bit of distrust of organised religion, mostly because of the myriad nincompoops who give religion a bad name by using it to assert control and their perceived superiority over others. And let’s face it, so many world religions just seem to be engaged in a hugely unattractive, thousand-year pissing contest with each other (MY God is the best. MY God is the One True God. YOURS is false and WRONG and pants. I’M going to heaven and YOU are not. BURN IN HELL, INFIDELS!! etc.).

BUT. And this is a big but. The main problem I have with religion is crazy religious people, and the problem I have with them is their craziness, not their religion. Crazy religious people bear all the hallmarks of stupid people. You know the ones I’m talking about. They’re the ones who are arrogant, judgemental, preachy, small-minded, irrational and annoying. The ones who think we should ‘burn the gays’. The ones who prevent or actively sabotage distribution of condoms in countries where AIDS is endemic and killing thousands of people, and where prevention really could be the cure. The so-called family friends who publically decided to boycott my sister’s wedding because they believed it was ‘not legal in the eyes of Allah’ and therefore not real or acceptable. (Oh, Bengali “community”, you do yourself no favours when it comes to making me respect you or listen to you in any way).

And I think this is the crux of why this teacher and his comments really got under my skin. He says he’s an atheist. But he’s also clearly a bit crazy and irrational. And the fact is, small-mindedness and ignorance are ugly wherever they are found. Especially in English teachers. (:P)