DAVID O'MEARA (Ottawa)

Building the Wall

Yo-Yo Ma, a noted cellist, was born in Paris to Chinese parents, but American.

Osama Bin Laden, who founded al-Qaeda, was from Saudi Arabia, and died in Pakistan.

Uranus, seventh planet from the sun, is a gas giant named for a Greek god.

Freddie Mercury, whose parents were Parsi, was born in Zanzibar but moved to Middlesex.

Ulysses, aka Odysseus, great-great grandson of an Olympian god, returned to Greece via Troy.

Che Guevera, a Marxist Argentinian, revered in Cuba, was shot in Bolivia.

Karen Blixen wrote Out of Africa. She was Danish.

Idris Elba, English (Sierra Leonean and Ghanaian parents), had a Baltimore accent in The Wire.

Noor-un-Nisa Inayat Khan, descendent of Indian Muslim royalty, was born in St. Petersburg.

            Her mother was American, from New Mexico.

            Living in France, the family escaped to England at the outbreak

            of the Second World War, and though a pacifist, Khan joined the Resistance

            against the Nazis, the first female Special Operations agent

            sent into Occupied France, posthumously awarded the George Cross

            after being betrayed, captured and then executed at Dachau Concentration Camp.

God is also called Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah, Krishna, Nkosi, Jah Rastafari, and Shàngdì.

Darth Vader was raised on Tatooine, but died on a space station built by his own Empire.

Ibn Battuta, a Moroccan, is considered one of the greatest travellers of all time. 

Christina, Queen of Sweden, spent much of her life in Rome.

Kaspar Hauser, an idiot, was raised in complete isolation in a dungeon.

Woody Guthrie, American folksinger, wrote “This Machine Kills Fascists” on his guitar.

Adolf Hitler, patriot, was a colossal asshole.

Donald Trump, businessman, grandson of white immigrants, married to a white immigrant,

            has yet to release his taxes.