Sometimes it takes you a bit of time to digest the full significance of an event that happened to you. Such was the case this evening on Tremadoc Road, just a few streets away from Aristotle Road where I live in South London. I was trying to distribute the hundreds of Labour Party The Rose leaflets (that the Ferndale Ward party had pleasantly left for me) as quickly as I could, striding purposefully between the terraced houses. On my way out of the gate of one of the houses I was questioned by a very smartly dressed young woman on the pavement sono italiano?. My answer in my very limited Italian was No, non sono italiano. Sono inglese, ma parlo un può l’italiano. I don’t know which of us was more shocked – her for having asked a Brit something in Italian and the Brit being capable of replying, or me being so overjoyed that I had managed to string together a sentence in Italian without having even thought twice about it!
Anyway, the woman was still not convinced that I was British and asked again, saying I even looked a bit Italian. Might be true sometimes, but surely not when I have an old rough sweatshirt on while delivering Labour Party leaflets! She then enquired whether I was capable of reading Italian, to which my polite response was, well, I more or less can. She then opened her bag and gave me a small leaflet in Italian… It was at this point that I realised it was something a bit odd as she also had a large bible in the bag. At this stage I explained that I had to go – again in Italian(!) – and I gave the woman a copy of The Rose in return (complete with it’s stories about the Lib Dem’s failing drugs policies and tax policies in Lambeth) said goodbye, and headed off down the street.
When I’ve finally got round to looking at what I was given, it’s a copy of La Torre Di Guardia – The Watchtower – the publication of the Jehovah’s Witnesses! Now, I am not sure that I would have been able to conduct a discussion about God versus atheism in Italian while stood on a street in Clapham, but I’m so happy I managed to conduct an impromptu conversation of any kind in Italian that I don’t care too much!
I hope your comment “there is absolutely no way I am going to be won over by the information being distributed” applied to what you were distributing as well as the JWs. It’s not true about the drugs policies…
Have no fear – there is absolutely no way I am going to be won over by the information being distributed! As is very clear in this blog, I am a committed atheist and that is how it is going to stay. It was just an amusing meeting – that’s why I wrote about it.
Up close and personal Jehovah’s Witnesses can be wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Think about this-When the devil comes knocking on your door he may not have the ‘dark goth look’.They could be smartly dressed and wielding the Christian Bible.
I have Jehovah’s Witnesses family in the usa who practice the Watchtower JW enforced ritual shunning that i have not seen or heard from in 15 years.
The central CORE dogma of the Watchtower is Jesus second coming (invisibly) in 1914 and is a lie.Jehovah’s Witnesses are a spin-off of the man made Millerite movement of 1840.
A destructive cult of false teachings, that frequently result in spiritual and psychological abuse, as well as needless deaths (bogus blood transfusion ban).
Yes,you can ‘check out anytime you want but you can never leave’,because they can and will hold your family hostage.
The world has the Internet now,and there are tens of thousands of pages up from disgruntled ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses like myself who have been abused by the Watchtower cult.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are often a mouth that prays a hand that kills.The Watchtower is a truly Orwellian world.
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Danny Haszard former Jehovah’s Witness X 33 years and 3rd generation http://www.dannyhaszard.com