The Islamisation of Birmingham
“there are actual cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim where non-Muslims just simply don’t go”
Steve Emerson, Terrorism Expert, on Fox News
Most reckon it was the day Ozzy Osbourne
walked out the gates of Winson Green Prison,
ready to commit acts of musical terrorism
in a desperate effort to undermine Christ,
that the City began turning instead
to Mecca. All agree
the situation grew
more serious each time Roy Wood sang:
I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday
in the hope we wouldn’t notice
the big mad beard he got
at a training camp in Pakistan.
Spaghetti Junction was already
jammed with Muslim only vehicles,
the night the Mulberry Bush
and Tavern in the Town
were blown up by Muslims
disguised as IRA men.
Since then every nil all draw
between Aston Villa and Birmingham City
has been celebrated by stadiums half full
of nothing but Muslims.
Truth is, it started way back,
the night Chamberlain signed
his secret treaty with Adolf, agreeing
in the event of war with Russia, to hand
the birthplace of Enoch Powell
over to the Islams.
These days the local economy is mostly
Jaguar Cars and Cadbury’s chocolate
being secretly manufactured by Muslims
for export to terrorist countries busy
thinking up new ways to kill us.
KEVIN HIGGINS
Note: All people, pubs, companies, and football teams mentioned in this poem are native to Birmingham, with the exception of the late Adolf Hitler, who was born in the small Austrian town of Braunau am Inn, though his people did visit Birmingham in 1940, 41, 42, & 43.
Kevin Higgins is co-organiser of Over The Edge literary events in Galway, Ireland. He teaches poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre, Creative Writing at Galway Technical Institute, and is Creative Writing Director for the National University of Ireland – Galway Summer School. He is poetry critic of The Galway Advertiser. His poetry is discussed in The Cambridge Introduction to Modern Irish Poetry and features in the generation defining anthology Identity Parade –New British and Irish Poets (Ed. Roddy Lumsden, Bloodaxe, 2010) and in The Hundred Years’ War: modern war poems (Ed. Neil Astley, Bloodaxe, April 2014). Kevin’s poetry has been translated into Greek, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Serbian, Russian, & Portuguese. In 2014 Kevin’s poetry was the subject of a paper ‘The Case of Kevin Higgins, or, ‘The Present State of Irish Poetic Satire’ presented by David Wheatley at a Symposium on Satire at the University of Aberdeen. He was Satirist-in-Residence at the Bogman’s Cannon (2015-16). ‘2016 – The Selected Satires of Kevin Higgins’ was published by NuaScéalta in 2016; a pamphlet of Kevin’s political poems The Minister For Poetry Has Decreed was published, also in 2016, by the Culture Matters imprint of the UK based Manifesto Press. His poems have been praised by, among others, Tony Blair’s biographer John Rentoul, Observer columnist Nick Cohen, and Sunday Independent columnist Gene Kerrigan; have been quoted in The Daily Telegraph, The Times (UK), The Independent, The Daily Mirror, and on Tonight With Vincent Browne; and read aloud by the film director Ken Loach at a political meeting in London. The Stinging Fly magazine recently described Kevin as “likely the most read living poet in Ireland.” He has published five collections of poetry with Salmon, most recently Song of Songs 2.0: New & Selected Poems (2017). Kevin has read his work at Arts Council and Culture Ireland supported poetry events in Kansas City, USA (2006), Los Angeles, USA (2007), London, UK (2007), New York, USA (2008), Athens, Greece (2008); St. Louis, USA (2008), Chicago, USA (2009), Denver, USA (2010), Washington D.C (2011), Huntington, West Virginia, USA (2011), Geelong, Australia (2011), Canberra, Australia (2011), St. Louis, USA (2013), Boston, Massachusetts, USA (2013) & Amherst, Massachusetts, USA (2013), & New Mexico, USA (2018).
