#232 Like a Grape

I heard an interesting factoid the other day. I’m not sure if its truth or one of those urban legends. Seems that the whole suicide bomber reward thing got lost in translation. How, you ask, could something get lost in translation in their own language? It could happen. Time changes things. There are a lot of disputed verses in the Bible, for instance, that hinge on how an ancient Hebrew word was translated into the Greek and then how it was translated into Latin and then into late medieval English. Ever tried to wade through Beowulf or the Canterbury Tales, or heck, even someone relatively late like Shakespeare? And they are all supposedly in English. I remember hearing a gal on one of those imported English shows on TV asking one of her friends to knock her up. What she meant was to phone her, but American viewers went, What? I had a friend who went over to England. When he left, we all called him by his name, Randy. When he came back, he insisted we call him Randall. Turns out when he was in England at a pub, he’d introduce himself to girls by going up and saying in perfect American, “Hi, I’m Randy.” More that once was he knocked around, in this sense meaning to slap until his ears rang like a telephone. Randy is the word that we in America equate with, um, a readiness to engage in, um, togetherness. Like a goat. So I can see how it’s possible for something to get lost in translation from the language of 800 A.D. to today. 1200 or so odd years can do a lot to language and meaning, fo’ shizzle.
Those of us who watch news-o-tainment believe that the reason it’s easy to get suicide bombers to die for their cause is because their religion promises them a wonderful reward in the afterlife. At least that’s what the news-o-tainment propagandists would have us believe. Folk wisdom doesn’t have to be true, it just has to be believable. So since we can’t conceive of anyone wanting to blow themselves up for hatred of their enemy or because they really feel it’s the only chance they have to take it to at least some of the people they perceive are their oppressors—because we can’t conceive of that kind of desperation—we think it must be due to something we do understand in American pie culture: teenage lust. And the teenage lust addressed in the putative promise of Allah is that if you blow yourself up for the cause, when you get to heaven you’ll be attended by 40 beautiful virgins. So that’s where the translation thing comes in. Apparently the appropriate text uses a word that doesn’t translate as “virgins” at all, but “white grapes.” That’s right, 40 white grapes. Youch. I’m guessing there’s a lot of disillusioned, disenchanted, and disappointed angry teenagers in the afterlife. Talk about grapes of wrath... America, ya gotta love it.