Mark Steyn observes that an ethnic group in the UK is making its presence felt in the most detailed of ways:
Alas, the United Kingdom’s descent into dhimmitude is beyond parody. Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council (Tory-controlled) has now announced that, following a complaint by a Muslim employee, all work pictures and knick-knacks of novelty pigs and “pig-related items” will be banned. Among the verboten items is one employee’s box of tissues, because it features a representation of Winnie the Pooh and Piglet.
As Steyn goes on to write, what will certain Muslim groups demand next: that Her Majesty the Queen be forced to abdicate on the grounds that it is intolerable that a Head of State be both a woman and be bare-headed? Is there no concession, however silly, that the cringeing political classes are not willing to make?
I think it is fair to say that yes, we should not go out of our way to put about images that are designed – key qualification – to be offensive to Muslims, or indeed Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, or for that matter atheists, agnostics or whatever. But it surely is a hallmark of a robustly tolerant and orderly society that people should not fly into a rage over something like a picture of Piglet on the side of a council worker’s coffee mug. If the Islamists cannot handle that, then what does it say about their own faith and moral fibre? I am an atheist and yet I don’t demand that people remove expressions such as “For God’s Sake” or “Heaven Help Us” from their vocabulary.
What’s the betting that some councils will seize upon this as an excuse to ban Animal Farm?
Woot! Good to see my local council getting a mention on the blogosphere…. Seriously tho this has more to do with the sheer stupidity of the council than the (local) muslim community. As far a I can see, round here they are too busy with ‘western interests’ to care too much.
Oh and they can have my copy of animal farm (and indeed any of my books) when they prise them from my cold dead fingers.
And here’s another gem from the BBC, this time via Robert Spencer’s excellent Dhimmi Watch. Perhaps Badawi & Co could suggest what should we subservient infidels should use instead of a Piggybank then … a Camelbank perhaps? Or how about an Usama Bin Laden toy
piggybank that screams “There Is No God But Allah” and splits open when its full up?(National UK IDhimmi Card Number withheld by request)
If the Islamists cannot handle that, then what does it say about their own faith and moral fibre?
I think it is important to distinguish between Islamists who by definition are in a rage about almost everything western, and Muslims which covers everyone born into or practising Islam, from the sanest and most tolerant to aforesaid raging nutters. The whole point of being an Islamist is to be in a rage about things (and against other Muslims as well as the west). It is their touchstone of faith and moral fibre, rather as a parallel rampant, if more tearful, emotionalism is the badge of the “caring” cult.
We have every right to ask tolerance of Muslims, but no reason to believe we will ever get it from the Islamists among them.
Have they not noted that the very banner of the United Kingdom is THREE CRUSADER CROSSES?
When will they ban Banks and Building societies from advertising their Mortgage rates on their front windows?
After all thats got to be offensive
Attention Councilor,
I have been working at the council for 15 years and I’ve always felt safe until today. This morning while I was delivering coffee I noticed that one of my co-workers was wearing a horse shoe around her neck. I immediately turned red in the face. I couldn’t believe someone could be so bigoted and ignorant. I politely asked why she was wearing such an offensive symbol and she replied that it was “lucky”. Lucky! All I could think about was the Invisible Pink Unicorn, Blessed Be Her Hooves, forced to wear horse shoes so the public could see her in a freak show. I was so enraged I hurled a Mocha at her face. I demand that you resolve this issue. If I continue to suffer these indignities at work I will make a submission to the European Court of Human Rights.
(someone had to do it)
guy herbert:
Why ask anything of them? If they don’t like pigs in the workplace they can lump it or leave. If they ask that images of pigs be banned, they can be told to shove it. If life is intolerable for them in Great Britain, they know where the airport is. It’s very simple.
EU-Serf,
We already have a ‘Sharia-compliant’ bank (pay no interest, receive no interest) in the UK, namely the Islamic Bank of Britain. Of course I doubt that they give away free piggybanks though …
Pete_London – That phrase caught my eye, too. We do not ask for “tolerance” from people in our home.
If they don’t like seeing Piglet or our nursery tales, including the three little pigs, they are in the wrong place and should move on.
You GO Girl!!!!
correction: should have read “You GO Dude!!!” (meant for Pete_London’s comment)
From the main post:
I think it is fair to say that yes, we should not go out of our way to put about images that are designed – key qualification – to be offensive to Muslims, or indeed Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, or for that matter atheists, agnostics or whatever.
Hey – go ahead and offend me. This is one atheist whose belief system can withstand the jibes and insults.
It amazes me that a small number of people who believe they have god on their side still aren’t confident enough to sit back, sip their tea and simply console themselves with the thought that, in the next life, they get the virgins and the rest of us get ol’ Nick.
Personally, I don’t think they actually do believe.
Whoever mentioned Animal Farm has got it doubly right. They probably will come after Orwell’s classic next; it’s intolerable for pigs to be represented as clever overlords! Into Allah’s righteous flames!
Jonathan: I am an atheist and yet I don’t demand that people remove expressions such as “For God’s Sake” or “Heaven Help Us” from their vocabulary. How about this(Link) then?
Gary Munro – I think they are just highly, highly offended that their belief system and their deity, so important to them, is of absolutely no consequence to anyone else. And they’re offended that we live our lives breaking all their primitive commandments, and nothing happens. So they make it happen themselves. This believe system does seem to inspire a lot fury and lunatic aggression. They’re rigid, intolerant, insecure and dangerous. That includes this Iqbal Sacranie, by the way. Read some of the thoughts he comes out with. He has managed to adopt protective colouration, so he doesn’t come across as a raving idiot, but actually, when you read some of his thoughts, he is one.
In Bristol not long ago a pub landlord in the district of Bedminster put up a sign at the entrance to what passes for a cark park to his premises that read:-
THE PORKING YARD
Now as puns go it probably isn’t the greatest, but given what the clientelle are likely to get up to after closing time in parked cars, well it was probably accurate.
In addition, this particular district of Bristol has historic links with the slaughter of pigs and had/and still has, many Pork butchers shops.
Along comes a thin skinned Muslim (more likely a well funded pressure group like the one behind the Bangladeshi schoolgirl and her uniform “Rights”) and complains that is offensive to Muslims.
The upshot is that an ASBO is issued against the Pub owner!
An ASBO!!! These are supposed to stop snotty kids creating mayhem in their neighbourhoods, not to stop the spread of bad puns.
As an unpracticing Law graduate I would love to have seen the charge!
For the life of me I cannot see the criminality of it.
Pork is not illegal, bad puns are not illegal, and as far as I am aware being offensive is not illegal either, as long as no advocacy of violence is involved.
So what the fuck is going on here!!
We need a sugar daddy just like the left. Some Trust or institute that will fund appeals in cases like this all the way up to the Court of Human Rights.
Dont get me wrong, I would abolish the Human rights act in my first week of power, but it can be turned into reverse.
We need to fight these absurdities all the way.We need to fund someone in that office to say that removing his “three little piggies ” mug is an infringement of his human rights and push it all the way to the point of absurdity and beyond right over into Milligan country.
Perhaps then we will stop sleepwalking to “accomodations” with people who have no intention of “accomodating” us.
I’ll do the legal work for free, just for the buzz. Any slush funds out there?
RAB
Oh what fun I’d have had if I’d been that pub landlord. The media would have been invited, local hacks, photographers, councillors, my MP and MEP, the Chief Constable, magistrates, Liberty, all and any Muslim asscociations, my regulars and anyone else, all invited to my car park to see me polish my sign and burn the ASBO. You just can’t put a price on such fun.
Gary Munro, I actually agree with you. If a religious nut foams about “infidel atheists” or lapsed Christians (as I am), I could not give a damn. However, my point was that there is a lot to be said for being civil towards people of different views and avoiding giving offence if possible. Call it old fashioned good manners. But sometimes one cannot avoid giving offence without descending into PC madness.
If I may add, the latest demand from the BBC Licence Fee gauleiters would have joined the ASBO in going up in smoke too. Whilst wearing my Bollocks to Blair shirt. Farmers and butchers would then open up a market in the car park, the only rule being that all pork products must be prominently displayed. Damn I’m getting into this!
Which is my point too. I say “ask” because I think it is damned rude to bullyingly “demand”, even when the context is the same one of unconditional insistence.
You cannot require others to tolerate in their hearts, whatever their outward cooperation, but being polite about it helps. There is often an aggressive tone in comments here towards Muslims in general that tends towards mirroring the bloodymindedness of Islamist yobs, rather than offering any hope of reciprocal tolerance.
Any rational individualist has to acknowledge that our social relationships are implicitly negotiated. And the realistic religious understand that too. For the Islamist, nothing is negotiable.
“My point too,” was addressed to Jonathan’s not Pete’s, which has crossed in the posting.
Not wishing to be too tinfoil hat about this, but I can’t find any reliable source for this story – only various commentary. Urban myth?
Jonathan, I get your point… and I agree. Manners is a wonderful thing and we quite forget these days that if we restrain ourselves out of courtesy to another it beats hands down any restraint that is due to fear of the imposition of a fine or an ASBO.
Political correctness has killed the live and let live society.
Verity – good point. Do you have a blog..?
– gary mOnro
Time for me to ‘fess up here. Over the last 5 years or so I have found myself on numerous occassions taking a hopefully obnoxious stance on several issues. Firstly when tobacco products started carrying ‘warnings’ covering 30% of the packaging I started smoking bigger and more outrageous looking pipes and cigars. Then in spite of having a wife from the Caribbean I find it almost impossible not to use the “N” word amongst Guardian types. Then after having very little interest in guns all my life I now find I want to wear T-shirts like these.(Link) Then as a result of reading about this current story I want to find some pig related outrage to commit.
I wonder whether this is an intended or unintended consequence.
Actually, that will probably be their next target after this one.
when will they outlaw gays or gay behaviour??
when will they outlaw gays or gay behaviour??
Being civil to people is the way I was taught to live my life.But I was also taught that it’s a two way street.
What civility was being accorded that pub landlord in his own country?
As Steyn goes on to write, what will certain Muslim groups demand next: that Her Majesty the Queen be forced to abdicate on the grounds that it is intolerable that a Head of State be both a woman and be bare-headed?
They’re demanding that the United Kingdom change its flag. The Union Jack is offensive because it incorporates the Christian Cross.
[We ran into that one here in the US after 9/11. At some universities, employees were told they could not post small American flags on their cubicles because it would offend foreigners.]
I have a proposal for an alternate flag: a red crescent on top of a white background with a vertical yellow stripe. Sounds perfect for someone like Chris Doyle.
Ah Yes! CRISTOPHER Doyle….Christopher – carrying Christ.
Isn’t it about time we stopped playing this bizarre game of Simon Says?
This is what Islam IS. Get used to seeing more and more stories like this in your newspapers. You guys can laugh at me but Steyn is right: today, it’s Piglet — 10 years from now, they’ll want to start dismantling all the portraits in the Tate (pictures of people and statues are haram too you know).
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/10/04/britain.redcross/index.html
Susan – Piglet and ice cream cones. Now, why does no one tell these primitive bottom feeders to get stuffed? Because this is the way Tony Blair and his backers want it and you try defying him (as in Bollocks to Blair) and you will feel the sharp, threatening pinch of a not-so-subtle warning.
This is why I despise the Conservatives. They are afraid to point out that this whole charade is daylight lunacy. They need to confront Antonio and Her Cherieness and the Uriah Heep of the cabinet, Jack Straw and tell them to justify this bollocks.
BTW, I would like to hear more news reports about the “indigenous community” in Britain. Given there are around 58m of us and we have thousands of years’ investment in our turf.
It behooves newcomers to someone else’s property (country) to be extremely polite and pleasant. That is the human norm, and is understood by all races and all classes – if I may use such an outdated word as shorthand – in the world. Transnational, transracial, transcultural. This is a fundamental human understanding.
Now, let us ask ourselves how these unassimilable people who begged and pleaded to get in are now so emboldened. There is just one realistic reason and that is that they have been informed their little forrays are national policy and will be supported by the government.
We live in a country where one of the British prime minister’s new “advisors” is Yusef Islam (aka Cat Stevens; don’t know his original Jewish name), who is banned from entry to the United States. But he comes and goes to Downing St. Along with another “advisor”, a barrister from Zimbabwe who writes books about the world being ruled by Freemasons and Jews. There are other “advisors”, equally colourful, but why go on.
Gary, thank you, but no, I don’t have a blog.
J wrote “Not wishing to be too tinfoil hat about this, but I can’t find any reliable source for this story- only various commentary. Urban myth?”
Not at all. The story appeared on the front page of last Friday’s Dudley edition of the Express and Star (local newspaper).
So the Muslims want to complain about pig representations? Fine. Start calling them OINKs. OINK is a wonderful acronym that clearly stands only for ‘Obviously Insurgents Not Killers’ and has no relation whatever to the sound a male pig makes when it’s being sexually assaulted by a terrorist.
More ridiculous sh*t. To some, this may seem like petty, annoying political correctness. To others, including myself, it’s another law among 100s invented each year that chips away at our basic freedom of thought.
Our leaders act is if we are being held hostage. Perhaps we are.
There’s a lot of grumbling and mumbling and bitching but everyone seems to, eventually, except what’s happening to them. To us.
Anyone have any ideas?
Will we all be blogging and commenting here when we are in our 80s? Discussing the latest imprisonment of someone who dared to have a negative thought about another person? Even worse, we won’t have the ability to speak our mind, even on the internet. Are our descendents destined to live safe and peaceful lives herding goats?
Sorry, getting carried away …
Thanks for the chance to rant.
Verity:
Cat Stevens wasn’t four by twoish. He was actually of Greek Cypriot heritage, born Stephen Georgiou in London. Needless to say, his later conversion to Islam went down like a lead zeppelin amongst the Greek community, who know what it’s like to have to live in dhimmitude. British useful idiots seem to be doing their best to make sure we all find out in a couple of generations.
John K, from what I hear, Cat Stevens is regarded as a bit of a joke. His remarks supporting the fatwa against Salman Rushdie pretty much screwed any decent reputation he may have had.
Jonathan – then why is he advising the prime minister of Great Britain? Doesn’t this one fact alone tell you volumes about Tony Blair’s agenda? The destruction of Britain. He doesn’t care what form it takes, and the Muslims are coming in extremely handy to accelerate the process. He doesn’t give a crap about them, their religion, their deity or their sensibilities, if any.