[Klug-general] How's this for Political Correctness gone mad?

[Sue Casely]

PMSL, Karl :)
SueC


On 04/10/05, Karl Lattimer <karl at nncc.info> wrote:
> The fecking swines?!!!?
>
> Get it... ;)
>
> Lest we should forget that in christian culture a pig is a sign of the
> Antichrist and is a demonic figure. Remember the story of legion?
>
> I think that these muslims need to man up so to speak and stop crying
> over a bit of porcine publicity.
>
> On Tue, 2005-10-04 at 10:50 +0100, Sue Casely wrote:
> > This story is in today's Daily Telegraph.
> > Heavens above!!!!
> >
> >
> > Making a pig's ear of defending democracy
> > By Mark Steyn
> > (Filed: 04/10/2005)
> >
> > A year and a half ago, I mentioned in this space the Florentine Boar,
> > a famous piece of porcine statuary in Derby that the council had
> > decided not to have repaired on the grounds that it would offend
> > Muslims. Having just seen Looney Tunes: Back in Action, in which Porky
> > Pig mentions en passant that Warner Bros has advised him to lose the
> > stammer, I wondered if for the British release it might be easier just
> > to lose the pig.
> >
> > 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.
> > And, as we know, Muslims regard pigs as "unclean", even an
> > anthropomorphised cartoon pig wearing a scarf and a bright, colourful
> > singlet.
> >
> > Cllr Mahbubur Rahman is in favour of the blanket pig crackdown. "It is
> > a good thing, it is a tolerance and acceptance of their beliefs and
> > understanding," he said. That's all, folks, as Porky Pig used to
> > stammer at the end of Looney Tunes. Just a little helpful proscription
> > in the interests of tolerance and acceptance.
> >
> > And where's the harm in that? As Pastor Niemöller said, first they
> > came for Piglet and I did not speak out because I was not a Disney
> > character and, if I was, I'm more of an Eeyore.
> >
> > And aren't we all? When the Queen knights a Muslim "community leader"
> > whose line on the Rushdie fatwa was that "death is perhaps too easy",
> > and when the Prime Minister has a Muslim "adviser" who is a
> > Holocaust-denier and thinks the Iraq war was cooked up by a conspiracy
> > of Freemasons and Jews, and when the Prime Minister's wife leads the
> > legal battle for a Talibanesque dress code in British schools, you
> > don't need a pig to know which side's bringing home the bacon.
> >
> > A couple of years ago, when an anxious-to-please head teacher in
> > Batley was banning offensive "pig-centred books", Inayat Bunglawala of
> > the Muslim Council of Britain commented that "there is absolutely no
> > scriptural authority for this view. It is a misunderstanding of the
> > Koranic instruction that Muslims may not eat pork." Mr Bunglawala is a
> > typical "moderate" Muslim - he thinks the British media are
> > "Zionist-controlled", etc - but on the pig thing he's surely right. It
> > seems unlikely that even the exhaustive strictures of the Koran would
> > have a line on Piglet.
> >
> > So these little news items that pop up every week now are significant
> > mostly as a gauge of the progressive liberal's urge to self-abase and
> > Western Muslims' ever greater boldness in flexing their political
> > muscle.
> >
> > After all, how daffy does a Muslim's willingness to take offence have
> > to be to get rejected out of court? Only the other day, Burger King
> > withdrew its ice-cream cones from its British restaurants because Mr
> > Rashad Akhtar of High Wycombe, after a trip to the Park Royal branch,
> > complained that the creamy swirl on the lid resembled the word "Allah"
> > in Arabic script.
> >
> > It doesn't, not really, not except that in the sense any twirly motif
> > looks vaguely Arabic. After all, Burger King isn't suicidal enough to
> > launch Allah Ice-Cream. But, after Mr Akhtar urged Muslims to boycott
> > the chain and claimed that "this is my jihad", Burger King yanked the
> > ice-cream and announced that, design-wise, it was going back to the
> > old drawing-board.
> >
> > Offence is, by definition, in the eye of the beholder. I once toured
> > the Freud Museum with the celebrated sex therapist Dr Ruth, who
> > claimed to be able to see a penis in every artwork and piece of
> > furniture in the joint. Yet, when I suggested one sculpture looked
> > vaguely like the female genitalia, she scoffed mercilessly.
> >
> > Likewise, Piglet is deeply offensive and so's your chocolate
> > ice-cream, but if a West End play opens with a gay Jesus, Christians
> > just need to stop being so doctrinaire and uptight. The Church of
> > England bishops would probably agree with that if, in their own
> > misguided attempt at Islamic outreach, they weren't so busy
> > apologising for toppling Saddam.
> >
> > When every act that a culture makes communicates weakness and loss of
> > self-belief, eventually you'll be taken at your word. In the long
> > term, these trivial concessions are more significant victories than
> > blowing up infidels on the Tube or in Bali beach restaurants. An act
> > of murder demands at least the pretence of moral seriousness, even
> > from the dopiest appeasers. But small acts of cultural vandalism
> > corrode the fabric of freedom all but unseen.
> >
> > Is it really a victory for "tolerance" to say that a council worker
> > cannot have a Piglet coffee mug on her desk? And isn't an ability to
> > turn a blind eye to animated piglets the very least the West is
> > entitled to expect from its Muslim citizens? If Islam cannot
> > "co-exist" even with Pooh or the abstract swirl on a Burger King
> > ice-cream, how likely is it that it can co-exist with the more basic
> > principles of a pluralist society? As A A Milne almost said: "They're
> > changing guard at Buckingham Palace/ Her Majesty's Law is replaced by
> > Allah's."
> >
> > By the way, isn't it grossly offensive to British Wahhabis to have a
> > head of state who is female and uncovered?
> >
> > I doubt whether the Post Office will be in any rush to issue another
> > set of Pooh commemorative stamps, or the BBC to revive Pinky and
> > Perky. Forty years ago, Britain's Islamic minority didn't have the
> > numbers to ban Piglet and change the Burger King menu. Now they do.
> > What will be deemed "unacceptable" in the interests of "tolerance" in
> > 20 or even five years' time?
> >
> > It has been clear since July 7 that the state has no real idea what to
> > do to reconcile the more disaffected elements of its fastest-growing
> > demographic. But at some point Britons have to ask themselves - while
> > they're still permitted to discuss the question more or less freely -
> > how much of their country they're willing to lose. The Hundred-Acre
> > Wood is not the terrain on which one would choose to make one's stand,
> > but from here on in it is only going to become more difficult.
> >
> > http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/10/04/do0402.xml
> >
> > (c) Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2005.
> > --
> > Sue C
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Kent mailing list
> > Kent at mailman.lug.org.uk
> > http://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/kent
> >
>
>


--
Sue C