The Sin of a Blacksmith

An ancient legend (that I have just made up) speaks of the godfather of all blacksmiths! With flesh like steel and blood like fire, he forged a sword that split mountains and pierced through space time (you get the idea). The blacksmith lived by himself, never met another a human being. He knew nothing of humans and human civilization, and he lead a peaceful "forever alone" kind of life!

One day, a man in a blood stained cape managed to make it to the blacksmith's workshop before he fainted. The blacksmith mended to him, and asked for his story, the man explained how dinosaurs, vampires and robots (Okay, I'll stop) have been attacking his peaceful country and that they had no way to defend themselves so they sent him to seek help ... long story short, the blacksmith gave him the sword and named him the first swordsman.

The swordsman recovered quickly and then went back to his country and single handedly defeated the dinosaurs, the vampires and the robots and freed his country. Blinded by the power of his sword, he declared to his people that the gods made him king of the world and crowned him with the divine sword! The swordsman walked the world and put whole countries under the mercy of his sword, executing whoever opposed him!

One day, a man found the blacksmith's place after days of travel, he told him that aliens, witches and evil unicorns are destroying his country ... the blacksmith forged him another sword (you have guessed), and forged one for every liar who came to him claiming to be the victim of some cliché supernatural predators.

Mankind killed each other: some swordsmen killed innocent people in the name of the blacksmith while others defended them equally in his name! Some people were still grateful to him for helping them against the dinosaurs, others hated him because their loved ones died in his name, and some denied his very existence!

None of them is to be blamed: not the blacksmith, not those who loved him, not those who hated him and not those who thought he was a hoax (let's face it, they never saw him) .. none of them is to be blamed, except for those who killed in his name!

Algeria in a car shell!

It all started one morning, I was heading to Algiers for some paperwork, pretty routine journey, it takes no more than 3 hours by car and after 6 years living there, it's only fair to say that Algiers is henceforth my neighborhood.

I had a feeling that that day was going to be particularly awkward, especially when I realized that I had been agreeing with a blind guy by nodding my head every time he talked! The man was not a part of the "interesting" fellowship I had the privilege to accompany to Algiers, so let's skip to those.

We took off around 7am. Next to the driver's seat sat a girl in Hijab, she was quite the spectator in the intellectual orgy to come, lucky her!

I sat by the window in the middle row, next to me a man from Sétif let's call him Ali, next to him a man from Maghnia: Omar. In the back row, two friends who were obviously immigrants visiting their country, one of them had a particularly long beard, say Amine and let's call his friend Ahmed.

Now that we're set on the heroes of my little story here, let us dig in!

Ali monopolized the discussion for the first chapter, I'm not sure I was more bothered by his opinions or by the fact that he was talking to the completely not interested driver .. it went a little like this:

_"Where are you from?"
_" ... why?"
_"You're not from El-Eulma, are you?" (El-Eulma is my home town in the departement of Sétif, where we took off)
_"I'm not!"
_"You're from Médéa, right?"
_"No I'm not!"
_"You sure?"
_"... I'm from Algiers and I live in El-Eulma" said the irritated driver
_"Aaah, I swear you look like someone -get this- I heard of! He's a taxi driver and he's from Médéa"
_"you're mistaking me for someone else!"
_"yeah, probably ... well, this is actually good, people of Médéa are nothing but unfaithful liars and cheaters"!

None of the flabbergasted faces in the car cared to reply to him .. it was obvious that it'll be like fighting a pig in the mud, and we knew we'd get dirty and he'd enjoy it.

_"They're no people to do business with, I tell you, if you wanna do business you should do it with the Kabyle, they're honest and righteous people, but boy are they racist!" and I was like "really?" fucking bigot, but I successfully remained silent

He went on and on about all kinds of people, his racism went beyond the classical Arabs vs Berbers discussion, he literally hated every single Wilaya (department) in the country, and all for a "good reason": People from Constantine, Annaba, Algiers, Blida, Tizi, Oran, Tlemcen ... Arabs, Mozabite, Kabyle, Chaoui ... he talked for a good hour before we stopped for lunch and when he ran out of people in Algeria, he started talking smack about Egyptians and Moroccans!

_"No!" Omar who gained a new spirit after his meal finally spoke
_"What?" asked Ali
_"Moroccans are our brothers and sisters, you shouldn't speak badly of them"

I lit up to this completely unexpected statement! Omar explained that despite possible disagreement between governments, our people are one and the same and we should act as such -not an argument that would run with the dude who's been trashing every region in his country though- I was happy, that there are people who do think this way, I mean ... I knew there were but Ali kinda killed me inside for about an hour, so ...

Anyway, defenseless Ali switched the subject to football, in a desperate attempt to escape the argumentative fangs of Omar, he was in for a surprise!

_"I don't watch football!" Omar declared, "This man is my hero" I thought! He's open minded, tolerant, and just saved my ass from a tedious discussion about football. The driver then intervened, such discussion was obviously appealing to him:

_"Why don't you watch football Omar?" said the driver
_"Because it's Haram!(forbidden)" o_O WTF?

There was a heated argument about football that turned slowly into a religious exchange. Omar linked the discussion back to his previous speech about tolerance, to him, your ethnicity doesn't matter as long as you're muslim. "Moroccans, Egyptians and others, these people are muslims, we love them, it is the koffar(infidels) we should hate, the bastards" so much for my fandom of Omar!

Didn't have enough time to be shocked, Amine joined the discussion. Long story short, he's not an Algerian immigrant in France who came back to visit, as I guessed from his speaking, but rather a French immigrant in Algeria. He's French by blood and birth, lived his youth in France and eventually converted to Islam, which was a congratulatory thought at first (being a muslim myself).

_"Yes my brothers" spoke Amine in an Arabic/Darja/French cocktail "Those damn infidels, they're a disgrace"

After hearing his story, Omar had officially welcome Amine into the muslim world on behalf of the rest of us .. the little ceremony encouraged Amine to talk more freely about his beliefs while his friend Ahmed kept quiet:

_"They're filthy people you know! They don't believe in God, they drink and eat pork ... did you know that people of Lut (referring to homosexuals) can get married there? what greater shame?
And women ... They only marry one woman ..."

I sat through the pain of listening to him trying to prove that polygamy's not just ok, but obligatory! According to him, the verse says "... then marry women of your choice two, three or four" then it must be at least two, or otherwise God could've said "one, two, three or four" ...

The girl in the front put her earphones on, while Ali, Omar, Amine and the driver, engaged in a groundless discussion that I obviously tried to erase from my head to no avail. Omar was against polygamy, Amine was too proud to care, Ali still thought that a muslim from Sétif is better than a muslim from Médéa and the driver just wanted religion to allow him to watch football!

I looked at those people and said "I got you guys, there's a hidden camera somewhere, isn't there?" ...
I wanted to say "who the fuck taught you Islam Amine?", I wanted to say "where the fuck do you think you came from Ali?", I wanted to say "are non muslim less human than you in anyway Omar?", I wanted to say "weren't you taught not speak to people while driving Mr driver?" ...

But all I said was "Pull over please, someone's gonna pick me up from here!"