An Englishman’s England A. Naji Bakhti I am a graduate of the University of Westminster with an MA in Creative Writing.
If I were English and this were my country, I would run down the street half-naked and pause, only to point out to strange tourists with turbans and disposable cameras and camels, that the bulge in my pants and Big Ben have an adjective in common. I would march towards Buckingham Palace and bow and curtsey and demand a dance with the Queen on the grounds that I pay my taxes and wash my dishes and kiss my kids, and mistress, goodnight, and have sung God Save the Queen more times than He or I care to remember. I would climb onto a bus and walk all the way to the very back where a drunken man sits and snores and wakes up only to speak his mind about politics and immigrants and the flailing economy and his wife, the whore who had an affair with a cheating Arab and cheated on him with a god-fearing Englishman. And I would shake the hand of every passenger who is not white or freckled or blond and say to them welcome, 51
