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This is addressed to all participants of #EAFOL16  #Dubai, #UAE, whether audience or authors.  2010 was the second year of #EAFOL and I...

Tuesday 17 November 2015

Poetry not punishment, a rebuttal to all the #Islamophobes

In the wake of the evil perpetrated in Paris my mind has been racing - how to counteract the inevitable surge of Islamophobia.

My most enjoyable time, during two decades of living across the Middle East, was when I was involved with Sharjah International Book Fair, #UAE and I introduced some new concepts, including poetry (personally I am not a great fan of poetry) which is ingrained within the culture.

Here are a few images taken from a public poetry evening blogpost, which I initiated:






Ordinary folks enjoying a night out, as all civilised humans do.

A couple of months later I organised an open-mic session during the 2011 edition of the book fair:


I am not a religious person, after all atheism from age thirteen has moulded me, but my UK upbringing reminds me of these words spoken by Jesus, a man held in great reverence by Islam and Christianity:

Forgive them for they know not what they do


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