If— (you want to be a true jihadi)

National Review Online ^ | August 08, 2006 | John Derbyshire

[neverdem]

August 08, 2006, 3:11 p.m.

If— (you want to be a true jihadi)

By John Derbyshire

For some reason my imagination was caught by the news last week that Osama bin Laden has sent his son Saad off to fight with Hezbollah in Lebanon.  Having Mozart-ized this little snippet in last week’s Radio Derb, I thought I might as well Kipling-ize it, too.

Perhaps Rudyard Kipling’s best-known poem, and surely the best-known hortatory poem in the English language, is “If—”  which appeared in a 1910 volume of historical stories for children.  The two children who are principal characters in the book are generally supposed to be based on Kipling’s own children Elsie and John, then aged 14 and 13 respectively.  It is, therefore, hard to believe that Kipling did not have his own son in mind when writing the poem.  To the best of my knowledge Kipling never admitted this, though, claiming only that the poem was written for his friend Dr. Jameson.  John Kipling was killed in action at the Battle of Loos in September 1915, aged just 18. 

Well, here is an updated version of “If—,”** suitable for Osama bin Laden to read to his son before the lad is sent off to fight the infidels.

            If— (you want to be a true jihadi)
 

If you can hack the head off from a hostage
Who’s kneeling bound and helpless on the floor;
If you can purge yourself of each last vestige
Of decency, morality, and Law;
If you can hate and never tire of hating,
Or, faced with truth, still hold fast to your lies,
Or, while you’re hard at work decapitating,
Show no trace of pity in your eyes:

If you can teach your kids the “victim” story,
Stir Muslim losers trapped in English slums,
Fill youthful heads with crackpot dreams of glory,
And urge them on to fiery martyrdoms;
If you can use religion as a cover
For deeds no man could pardon or excuse,
Or claim that all the ills we humans suffer
Are machinations of the evil Jews:

If you can use the fruits of Western science
(A science that your culture cannot match)
To broadcast all your hatred and defiance,
Or carry out your crimes with more dispatch;
If you can put aside sectarian violence,
Co-operate with Shi’ites from Iran,
Unite Islam; intimidate to silence
All Muslims who won’t sign up to your plan:

If you can fly a plane into a building
Filled with harmless folk you’ve never seen,
Or seize a school that’s full of little children
And murder them when rescuers break in;
If you can fill each precious living minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of evil done, 
Yours is heaven, and all the virgins in it,

And then you’ll be a real jihadi, son!

——————-

** The title of the poem appears as I have shown it, with a dash, in The Definitive Edition of Rudyard Kipling’s Verse, but the dash is often left out when the poem is reproduced.  The format of the poem, by the way, was inspired by the last three stanzas of  John Donne’s “The Undertaking.”

[neverdem]

Ping

[GeronL]

Is Kipling public domain yet? Can it be downloaded at the Gutenberg Project?

[neverdem]

I have no idea.

[jan in Colorado]

HOW did you know that "If" is my all time favorite poem?

Thanks for the ping!

[Fred Nerks]

It's mine, too!



Rudyard Kipling


If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

[jan in Colorado]

LOL!

Hey Fred, I was just getting ready to ping this to you!

[jan in Colorado]

Jihad Ping!

"If you can use religion as a cover
For deeds no man could pardon or excuse,"

[neverdem]

HOW did you know that "If" is my all time favorite poem?

I didn't. IIRC, you wrote that you liked the Derb.

[IronJack]

Whoever penned this is a genius. I'm in awe.

And these lines sum up Islam pithily:

If you can use religion as a cover
For deeds no man could pardon or excuse

[Old Student]

Yes, or at least some of his work is.

http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/k

and scroll down quite a ways to:


Kipling, Rudyard, 1865-1936
Wikipedia
Actions and Reactions (English)
American Notes (English)
Barrack Room Ballads (English)
The Bridge Builders (English)
Captains Courageous (English)
Captains Courageous (English)
Danny Deever (English)
The Day's Work - Part 01 (English)
The Day's Work - Volume 1 (English)
Dedication (English)
Departmental Ditties & Barrack Room Ballads (English)
A Diversity of Creatures (English)
France at War
On the Frontier of Civilization (English)
From Mine Own People (English)
Indian Tales (English)
The Jungle Book (English)
Just So Stories (English)
Kim (English)
The Kipling Reader
Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling (English)
Letters of Travel (1892-1913) (English)
Life's Handicap (English)
The Light That Failed (English)
The Lock and Key Library
Classic Mystery and Detective Stories: Modern English (English) (as Contributor)
The Man Who Would Be King (English)
The Phantom Rickshaw and Other Ghost Stories (English)
Plain Tales from the Hills (English)
Puck of Pook's Hill (English)
Puck of Pook's Hill (English)
Rewards and Fairies (English)
Sea Warfare (English)
The Second Jungle Book (English)
Soldiers Three (English)
Soldiers Three - Part 2 (English)
Songs from Books (English)
Stalky & Co. (English)
Stories by English Authors: The Orient (Selected by Scribners) (English) (as Contributor)
The Story of the Gadsbys (English)
Traffics and Discoveries (English)
Under the Deodars (English)
Verses 1889-1896 (English)
Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages (English) (as Contributor)

[GeronL]

wow... I am going over that ways for a bit

[Old Student]

There are worse places to hang out, for sure!

[neverdem]

Pardon me if anyone is offended, but I thought I should share the pic with everyone. This is the pic from Drudge's site, not the Reuters' story.

Hillary Clinton on display at NY's Museum of Sex

Hatin’ on Hillary: N.H. Dems lambaste Clinton

Ned Lamont: Pink Diaper Baby With Silver Spoon In Mouth

From time to time, I’ll ping on noteworthy articles about politics, foreign and military affairs. FReepmail me if you want on or off my list.

[Pharmboy]

The beeyotch NEVER looked as good as that piece of stone...

[GeronL]

It is definitely offensive

[Eaker]

Humble please fix this picture.

[humblegunner]

Humble please fix this picture.

I think that one is a bit beyond my abilities.

Stuff like that cannot be fixed, only erased.

[humblegunner]

Best I can do at 2037 hrs on a Wednesday:

[FreedomPoster]

On the topic of Kipling; one that more should be familiar with:

The Grave of the Hundred Head

Rudyard Kipling

---

THERE’S a widow in sleepy Chester
     Who weeps for her only son;
There’s a grave on the Pabeng River,
     A grave that the Burmans shun,
And there’s Subadar Prag Tewarri
     Who tells how the work was done.

A Snider squibbed in the jungle,
     Somebody laughed and fled,
And the men of the First Shikaris
     Picked up their Subaltern dead,
With a big blue mark in his forehead
     And the back blown out of his head.

Subadar Prag Tewarri,
     Jemadar Hira Lal,
Took command of the party,
     Twenty rifles in all,
Marched them down to the river
     As the day was beginning to fall.

They buried the boy by the river,
     A blanket over his face—
They wept for their dead Lieutenant,
     The men of an alien race—
They made a samadh in his honor,
     A mark for his resting-place.

For they swore by the Holy Water,
     They swore by the salt they ate,
That the soul of Lieutenant Eshmitt Sahib
     Should go to his God in state;
With fifty file of Burman
     To open him Heaven’s gate.

The men of the First Shikaris
     Marched till the break of day,
Till they came to the rebel village,
     The village of Pabengmay—
A jingal covered the clearing,
     Calthrops hampered the way.

Subadar Prag Tewarri,
     Bidding them load with ball,
Halted a dozen rifles
     Under the village wall;
Sent out a flanking-party
     With Jemadar Hira Lal.

The men of the First Shikaris
     Shouted and smote and slew,
Turning the grinning jingal
     On to the howling crew.
The Jemadar’s flanking-party
     Butchered the folk who flew.

Long was the morn of slaughter,
     Long was the list of slain,
Five score heads were taken,
     Five score heads and twain;
And the men of the First Shickaris
     Went back to their grave again,

Each man bearing a basket
     Red as his palms that day,
Red as the blazing village—
     The village of Pabengmay,
And the “drip-drip-drip” from the baskets
     Reddened the grass by the way.

They made a pile of their trophies
     High as a tall man’s chin,
Head upon head distorted,
     Set in a sightless grin,
Anger and pain and terror
     Stamped on the smoke-scorched skin.

Subadar Prag Tewarri
     Put the head of the Boh
On the top of the mound of triumph,
     The head of his son below,
With the sword and the peacock-banner
     That the world might behold and know.

Thus the samadh was perfect,
     Thus was the lesson plain
Of the wrath of the First Shikaris—
     The price of a white man slain;
And the men of the First Shikaris
     Went back into camp again.

Then a silence came to the river,
     A hush fell over the shore,
And Bohs that were brave departed,
     And Sniders squibbed no more;
     For he Burmans said
     That a kullah’s head
Must be paid for with heads five score.

There’s a widow in sleepy Chester
     Who weeps for her only son;
There’s a grave on the Pabeng River,
     A grave that the Burmans shun,
And there’s Subadar Prag Tewarri
     Who tells how the work was done.