Mind your language

America, Saudi Arabia have double standards that none can challenge

Listen up! All you wannabe Green Card holders. Brush up your English language skills before you face the dour-faced immigration officer at your US port of entry. No, this is not a joke being played on you; the joke is American President Donald Trump’s latest edict out of the White House dictating that he will only allow entry to people who can speak English! So, here’s my two-cent advice to you: start practising ‘Trumpspeak,’ a language rich in idiotic gibberish. Learn to say ‘covfefe’ or ‘bigli’ the way Trump says.

Cram words like “fantastic;” “terrific;” “tremendous.” Preface them with “very very.” Master superlatives by recycling some of Trump’s sentences like: “I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created.” Or “I’m really rich! …I’m not even saying that in a brag.” Or “I’m the most militaristic person.” Or “If you really love this country you have a very, very hard time convincing people that you’re really smart. I’m really smart.” Or “I would hit [ISIS] so hard your head would spin.”

Learn to use Trump-style dinky sentences, truncated and stunted making him a half-wit. And, by the way, swat American-English because you can fail the language test if you use British vocabulary. While we use ‘joggers,’ Americans use ‘sneakers’ (their standard footwear); we eat ‘chips,’ they call it ‘french fries;’ we like ‘biscuits,’ they call them ‘cookies’ and never say the phone is ‘engaged,’ instead use ‘busy.’ The US State Department has a website on American English. Make sure you learn their spellings too…they are quite different from what we were taught in schools. You’ll be given a spelling test, heaven forbid you write ‘programme’ instead of ‘program!’ Trump’s racism and bigotry makes him forget that America was built by immigrants who came without learning English. Many Hispanics to this day can’t speak English. The second-language in the US is Spanish. Call a service outlet or a government agency, the recording you’ll hear is: “press 1 for English, press 2 for another language.”

Here’s one man who has boldly poked a finger in the US president’s eye. An Indian diplomat cared not a whit about minding his language when he mocked Trump’s prodigal daughter Ivanka. Named as leader of the US delegation at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in India this November, the unnamed diplomat told Bobby Ghosh, editor-in-chief of the Hindustan Times, that “We regard @IvankaTrump the way we do half-wit Saudi princes.” While Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi gushed saying he “look[s] forward” to her arrival, the diplomat said, “It’s in our national interest to flatter them…Yes, it is a shame that the US should be compared to a kingdom. But that is America’s shame, not Modi’s, or India’s.”

The Saudis like the Indians are transactional. They drooled at buying arms worth billions from Trump when he landed in Riyadh. They were okay with Trump women being bareheaded. There was the former model and First Lady Melania descending Airforce One in a black sheath with a thick gold belt highlighting her curvaceous lines while King Salman waited at the foot of the steps to welcome them. Ivanka and her step-mother flouted their long blonde tresses as they moved among the all-male Saudi royals and their top officials during their stay. They wore dresses that were showstoppers. King Salman didn’t mind Melania standing close to him. Obviously, the terrorising religious police tasked with enforcing Sharia, as defined by Saudis, was kept at bay. For the American VVIPs, the Saudis have different rules; for the rest of the world’s VVIP women: ‘cover your head!’ Speaking of migration to America — ‘Show me your money and I’ll give you a red-carpet welcome,’ says Trump. ‘Never mind if you can’t speak English!’ No wonder the filthy rich Saudis enter for la dolce vita. Simply put: America and Saudi Arabia have double standards that none can challenge.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 20^th, 2017.

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