Monday, June 11, 2007
Idols and Islanders
I don’t want to be too hard on the BBC (though they deserve it) because every once in a while they have fantastic articles like this one:
Is Prince Philip an island god?
Prince Philip (husband of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II) is worshiped in certain Pacific islands as a god!! I never understood how people in the time of Avraham Avinu could bow down to pieces of wood and stone that were just made. We all know the famous midrash that Avraham was a lousy seller of idols because he would tell them how stupid they were for worshiping something younger than they are.
But PRINCE PHILIP!!! Not only is he not quite as charming or bright as a stick or rock, but he is one of the most racist famous people around (in the ‘good old fashioned sense of just hating everyone equally). The only thing going for him is that he is probably older than most of these islanders (I’ve no idea what the average life expectancy is on Vanuatu, but the prince just celebrated his 86th birthday yesterday.
The midrashim don’t seem so strange or far-fetched any more!
BTW here are some classic Prince Philip quotes, which give you an idea of his high regard for those who worship him, and anyone else in creation:
Do you still throw spears at each other?
-- (on meeting Aborigines in Australia)
If it has got four legs and it is not a chair, if it has got two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane, and if it swims and it is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it.
-- (as spoken at a 1986 World Wildlife Fund meeting)
How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to get them to pass test?
-- (Asking a driving instructor in Oban, Scotland)
You can’t have been here that long, you haven’t got a pot belly.
-- (as told to a Briton in Hungary)
“Do you know they have eating dogs for the anorexic now?”
-- Said to a blind woman with a guide dog.
“British women can’t cook” in 1966.
No doubt a conclusion he reached after lengthy research up and down the country sampling various repasts provided by the peasantry.
“Everybody was saying we must have more leisure. Now they are complaining they are unemployed” - during the 1981 recession.
“If a cricketer, for instance, suddenly decided to go into a school and batter a lot of people to death with a cricket bat, which he could do very easily, I mean, are you going to ban cricket bats?” This amazing example of sheer stupidity taken to frightening illogical heights is from 1996, amid calls to ban firearms after the Dunblane shooting. I’m sure his words brought solace to the families of the murdered children.
“Bloody silly fool!”. Just one of the arrogant parasite’s comments about the people who pay out good money to keep him in clean underwear. This was in 1997, referring to a Cambridge University car park attendant who didn’t recognise him trying to get into reverse as the Great Consort.
“It looks as if it was put in by an Indian”.
Another classic racist taunt at the working class. This gem was spat out while the he was pointing at an old-fashioned fusebox in a factory near Edinburgh in 1999.
In Cardiff in 1999 he visited a school for young deaf people. Also there to greet him was a welcoming steel band from a neighbouring youth club. “ Deaf? If you live near this, no wonder you are deaf “.
“You are a woman, aren’t you?” .
To prove his mental capacity is a little more than a squashed weetbix, he addressed this probing question to a woman in Kenya in 1984. He pocketed a gift from her first - not as silly as he looks.
“If you stay here much longer, you’ll all be slitty-eyed” .
A cheerful chat to British students in China during the 1986 state visit, guaranteed to spark a riot.
Originally from Wellington, New Zealand, Rabbi David Sedley now lives in Jerusalem with his wife and children. He currently teaches at both Midreshet Rachel and Darche Noam Yeshiva. Previously he served for four years in Scotland as the Rabbi of Edinburgh Hebrew Congregation, followed by four years as Rabbi of Beth Hamidrash Hagadol Synagogue in Leeds, England.
