“Keeping up Appearances”

Strolling around Istanbul’s Topkapi Palace back in 2012, who should I meet but the beautiful Princess Nilhan Osmanoglu, a descendent of the last of the Ottomans. It was while admiring a beautiful mural glorifying the sublime occasion Suleiman The Magnificent reclined in his garden, stroking a peacock, leisurely narrating instructions from the Koran to his Janussaries on how to skewer Christian heads before serving them up as kebabs, that I bumped into someone I thought to be the cleaning lady.

It turned out to be the Princess herself in the guise of an old street hag, wiping out the inside of the Suleimans favourite Giant spittoon (the one which he often used to roast the testicles of European ambassadors he took a dislike to.) Incognito, the Princess tells me (inspired by the great 12^th century Caliph, Rashid Cillingnonmuzzies-a-rUS) in order to wander through the streets, listening to and learning what the people really thought in preparation for her future ascent to power in Erdogan’s fast-approaching  neo-Ottoman caliphate.

Initially taken aback by my Aussie accent, even more by the expression “Shit sheila, move yah fat arse, will yah?!”, we soon got into an intense discussion. Surprisingly well-informed about matters down-under, Princess Nilhan frequently alludes to Australian politics as she reveals her inner-most thoughts on what it means to be a royal in the mega-powerhouse that is about to “completely fuck Europe”, as she put it.

The secret is in the ‘veneer‘, she tells me. You have this expression in real estate (she explained): ’Location! Location! Location!’, don’t you? Well, in Islam, we have a similar expression: ‘Veneer! Veneer! Veneer!’

As for advice on bringing the caliphate about down-under? You need to retain your femininity: dress well, not like those Greens sluts. Adopt a veneer of concerned and dignified respectability in your speech, and don’t blubber like a lunatic, otherwise they’ll be on to you. But I know this must be especially difficult for Arab Muslims in Australia to, how you say, ‘Come the raw prawn with someone’??? Where their credibility is as scarce as fucking-horse shit??? (‘Rocking’ horse, I corrected her).  But us Turks, the Princess continued, here we have a 623 year line of dynasties to draw respectability from, but a caliphate is nevertheless still possible in Australia, she insists.

That was in 2012.
Last week I get a phone call from the Princess and find her English has greatly improved. She’s decided to throw in her lot behind Erdogan’s push to become a Sultan this April. In return, she gets to stay Princess, promoted to Sultana when they finally take Rome.

“Veneer! Veneer! Veneer!” Princess Nilhan reminds me.
“But in Oz, she says, you have to go about it differently. A good way to start, after you come over from, say, Egypt, is to go to uni and get some impressive humanitarian qualifications. This way you can help disguise the fact you don’t give a hoot (“A flying-fuck”, I correct her) about people other than Muslims. Human Rights is good if you want to impress the Lefties but you probably need something more than that to try to fool the Right.

Get a PHD in ‘Perceptions of Terrorism’, for example, if you can. Loudly spruik all that worthless deradicalisation expertise you’ve picked up from a garbage heap somewhere, while continuing to publicly pay lip-service to fighting ISIS. Then stand on an erection (“Stand for election”, I correct her again) in West Aussie somewhere (“Cowan”, I suggest), and shit (‘sit’) in Parliament for the next few years playing the Muslim victim card and moaning a lot (having a Muzzie orgasm, I correct, incorrectly) about Islamophobia.

Veneer! Veneer! Veneer!
And every now and then you raise your petite and rather dainty North-African-coloured ass from the benches to spout ridiculous and manufactured allegations about the rise of right-wing extremism in Australia. This, to justify imposing Islam’s blasphemy laws on Australians under the veneer of countering Islamophobia with 18C. That should do it! Before you know it, bingo!: out from under all of this veneer comes an Aussie caliphate!

But not if you let the Chinese take over first,” Princess Nilhan warns. “The last thing they’re going to do is sit around while Muzzies send their property prices down the turd-burglar.”  ‘Gurgler’, I correct, for some reason thinking of Bandt and Greenies again and wondering who is worse.