Serious discussion on the tram.

Yesterday I braved the weather and went into Manchester for my Italian conversation class. I am glad that we only caught the tail end of Hurricane Gonzalo. If that was the tail end, I dread to think what it must have been like earlier. At one point I stood under the shelter at the tram station in Oldham when it started to rain. The wind blew the rain so that it was horizontal. We were under the shelter but still getting wet and cold. 

As people complained of the cold, one man commented that in his country this would not be considered cold. There they had snow on the hills and mountains all the time so this bit of rain and wind was nothing. From his dress he was clearly Muslim and I wondered where he was from. And so, being a friendly sociable person (aka a nosy Parker) I asked him. Afghanistan, he revealed. At that point the tram arrived and we all got on after, unusually, being asked to show our tickets and passes. I sat down and, to my surprise, the man from Afghanistan came and sat next to me, even though there was plenty of room in the tram. 

And so began a conversation that went on all the way to Shudehill in Manchester, where I alighted. I learned that he had been in England for three years and that when he arrived he spoke no English at all. He had not been to classes but had picked up English from listening and talking to people. Maybe he makes a habit of talking to tram passengers. He said he had not learnt to read and write English. I tried, unsuccessfully, to find out what he is doing in England, although I got the impression that he had come initially for medical treatment. He showed me the scars on his leg and told me that he had been injured in both legs and had been unable to walk at all for a long time. Even now he still walked with a crutch. 

I was told at length how wrong the fighting and foreign intervention in Afghanistan is. His argument went along the lines that in England ("your country" was how he described it) people can be prosecuted for hitting children and yet it is considered all right to send soldiers from the UK, from the USA, from France, to kill families and children in his country. What happens, he told me, is that people gather to go to market, to do their shopping, to get on with the business of life and this is seen as an illegal gathering and bombs are dropped. He had lost his father and all his siblings that way. It's a powerful argument. 

What I found less palatable was when he started to talk to me about religion. Assuming that I am a Christian (well, I had already assumed he was a Muslim) he informed me that we are mistaken to call Jesus the son of God. God does not have sons. God is simply there. Jesus, a prophet, was the son of Mary, or Miriam as he called her. And like the prophet Mohammed, he is in fact not dead but has been taken up to Heaven. And then there is the Bible, which apparently is different in Birmingham, London, Oldham or wherever people live. I had to protest at this but he corrected me, assuring me that people re-write the Bible to suit their own lives. Interpretation? Is that what he meant? 

The Koran on the other hand, he told me, is pure and unique. There is only the one. He was not impressed by people who read the Koran in English translation and say they are converted to Islam either. Maybe that is the problem: his belief that the Koran should be accepted without understanding or study. It was all becoming very confusing, and his English was really not up to the argument he seemed to want to have. Besides he appeared to be a nice chap, if a little fanatical, and I really wasn't in the mood for an in depth discussion. 

So I was quite glad when Shudehill tram stop the turned up and I was able to get off, without revealing to him that his assumption of my belief in Jesus as the son of God was mistaken. He was so passionate about the whole thing that I didn't want to disillusion him. 

One of my companions in the Italian class told me I had clearly come across a fanatic, possibly dangerous. But, of course, my travelling companion may just have wanted to practise his English. It'll teach me to keep my mouth shut when I'm waiting for the tram.