I was initially not going to comment on this, since I have mixed feelings about it, but about ten gazillion people have sent it to me, so here goes.
Muslims are in France -- and they have to eat. Some may see this as a sign of the Islamization of France, and that it may be. But there is also a positive side. Instead of agitating the real Burger King or other fast food outlets to accommodate themselves to halal requirements, they are simply starting their own. This is genuine pluralism.
From AP, with thanks to all who sent this in:
PARIS - Muslims in France are having it their way with "Beurger King" — a new fast-food restaurant that caters to the country's large Islamic population.The bright and colorful eatery was launched in July in an eastern Paris suburb crowded with immigrants and dilapidated housing projects. Its name plays on the French word "Beur," meaning a second-generation North African living in France.
The menu at Beurger King Muslim, or BKM, is standard fast-food fare: burgers, fries, sundaes and doughnuts, and prices are comparable to those at major chains. But the beef and chicken burgers are halal — meaning made with meat slaughtered according to Islamic dietary laws.
Waitresses wear Islamic head scarves, as do many of their customers.
I'm all for free enterprise and proper assimilation of muslim minorities. But I still have some misgivings about this.
Emulating the decadent capitalist west by not only creating a fast food franchise, but infringing on Burger King's trademark identity - by naming the new halal enterprise "Beurger King" - is ironic/hypocritical in the very least.
We all enjoy ethnic restaurants, so my problem with this franchise has little to do with the menu. Specifically,it remains suspect as to how welcoming to non-believers this enterprise will be.
First thought . . .Any woman, not wearing identifying garments, or without male escort when entering this business would likely feel quite uncomfortable, even fear for her safety. The location of restaurants like this are probably located in what are identified as 'no-go zones' in France.
Finance came from the government.
You should be impressed!
miira stated: "Emulating the decadent capitalist west by not only creating a fast food franchise, but infringing on Burger King's trademark identity - by naming the new halal enterprise "Beurger King" - is ironic/hypocritical in the very least."
More like the usual stealing by muslims of all things Western. Why can't they just name the establishments "Moe's"? Advertising possibilities: "Moe Knows Halal" or "Eat at Moe's."
But I do see a cease and desist lawsuit coming down the pike from the Burger King Corporation against this trademark theft.
At least there is no danger of the waitresses dropping hairs in the soup.
That's not a hair, it's rabbit
Sign ideas:
Moe Bob's fine foods: Eat here...or we'll kill you
Moe Bob's fries......They're the bomb!
Moe Bob's: Simply a CUT above the rest
I have several thoughts on this new burger joint. First, although halal meat is all over the place, please remember that it is a very cruel method in which to kill animals, slitting of a concious animal's throat. Of course, Muslims enjoy watching the process on certain television stations in Europe and in the Middle East....Bridgette Bardot was hauled into court for, among other issues, critising the practice of halal slaughter Second, I second Miira's question about this new restaurant. Can a woman be served without a head covering? Will unescorted women be served? Can an observant Jewish family drop by for a meal and some play time with their children, or would they be excluded? This restaurant seems to be just another outward sign of Muslims willingly separating themselves from non-Muslims, even in such a small act as eating some fast food and giving children the chance to enjoy some playground equipment.
I checked online and the The Burger King franchise is no longer in France
so there is little chance of a trademark infringement.
DC, you should read some of the humorous comments placed at the yahoo discussion board . . .
"There are a few changes they could make to give the place a completely Muslim image," Halimi said. "The television is OK, but there shouldn't be any music.
How sad is that? To be truly Muslim, there shouldn't be any music.
I'm surprised that TV is OK since that TV bonfire in Pakistan.
Speaking of financing... Islamic banking has come to the US.
http://www.freep.com/money/business/islamic6e_20050806.htm
From the article:
"Muslim diners said they felt more misunderstood in France since last month's terror attacks in London."
"Both Muslims and other people feel at ease here," Talbi said. "Maybe this kind of place will help to correct the bad image of Muslims and tell the world to stop talking nonsense about us."
Yeah, I get it. By further resisting any kind of assimilation, on top of ripping off a U.S. based trademark, the "bad image" of Islam will be corrected. Query: could a non-Muslim female who DOESN'T wear a head scarf get a job as a waitress at this place? Just a thought.
By the way, I'm not so sure that just because Burger King doesn't have franchises in France, that there is not a blatant trademark issue. That doesn't seem to make much sense to me, although I'm not an intellectual property lawyer. Could it be that the corporate leadership of Burger King simply doesn't want to offend the "misunderstood" Muslims in France? Or are they afraid of the consequences?
What bothers me is this. Fast food, at least here in England, is one of the areas in which small Muslim immigrant entrepreneurs have been most conspicuously successful. Everyone knows the words doner kebab, shish kebab, pitta, lahmacun, falafel. They are tasty and cheap and I for one prefer them to Mcfood. So why should anyone want to start a business putting a fake Islamic face on American recipes? It seems to me typical of that strange mixture of cultural surrender and truculence that hovers like a nasty smell around a certain kind of assertive second-generation Muslim person whose only culture is second-hand, second-rate Western popular.
Before you know it, we'll be reading that Burger King was always "Beurger King" and that it was the West that usurped the idea from the muslims. Sort of like when they say that the whole world used to be muslim, or that the Bible's unreliable because the Jews and Christians got the message all wrong and that the quran is the real deal...
McMuhammad's
Wendhabi's
Taqiyya Bell
Thanks Miira
Miira:
This is indeed "Free Enterprise"- in the traditional Jizya fashion:
The French government puts up the money and finances this idiotic knock-off of Burger King, in order to 'integrate and assimilate' a parasitic foreign body in France.
Nothing will come of it. I spit on all these socialist experiments with taxpayers money, in whichever country.
Try to go to Egypt, Jordan or Iran and try to get a government grant for a Taco Bell knock- off, let me know how far you'll get...
DC WATSON-
"Taqiyya Bell"!
ROTFLMAO!
Now that is one place you wouldn't want to eat.
(Everything on the menu is a lie.)
The cheese? (Don't ask, don't tell.)
The burrito? (Toasted surgical sponges.)
The 'taco'? (Don't see much indeterminate road-kill 'splotches' in the neighborhod lately..)
The salsa? (Abu Ghraivey.)
Washed down with a chilled bottle of Zam-Zam water. (Catheter residue mostly filtered out.)
OT-
To cover the possibility that JD/DW may be ending the COMMENTS sections, I wanted to initiate a back-up site. Thus:
I have been creating (unintentional) troll flypaper on several blogs
For JIHADWATCH-
http://watchmyjihad.blogspot.com/
http://watchjihad.blogspot.com/
and for DHIMMIWATCH-
http://watchonthemind.blogspot.com
(2 comment links)
BUT one spamming character has eluded "BLOGGER"'s controls and webmaster so far, therefore I have had to keep adding newer postings with new, not-clogged-so-far "comments" sections, and shutting off the previous, clogged ones.
I guess I am providing Mr. Spencer a service by drawing off one numbskull from trying the same at Jihadwatch/Dhimmiwatch.
[I suspect a poster who did the same spam-o-rama nonsense HERE a month or so ago -under the screen name "Super_Garp". A neo-Nazi-cum-jihadist, if I remember the gist of his quickly-deleted postings correctly.]
Wish me luck scrubbing this Wahabbist weasel from the "not-very-well-set-up-to-block-buffons-or-to-delete-their-demented-drivel" BLOGGER site.
I'll have to change my name to FlyAgaric if this phenomenon persists.
Where does the beef come from?...Slaughtered by the ritual of halal does not guarantee a 'mad cow'free beurger...or booger or bugger. I suspect that the muslim herd keepers test for such things...dont they???
Mayrose: kosher butchering also involves slitting a conscious animal's throat. As long as they refrain from cutting human throats, I've got no qualms.
Frankly, if Muslims want to open halal burger stores, I could care less. They have halal restaurants in Taiwan and N. Thailand which I have patronized and liked.
Then again, opening the thing on a government subsidy...
BigSleep, SAK of _ _ _ _ has attached himself to me also. Persistent little bugger isn't he?
Kepha: Hala butchering bothers me, so I guess we have a difference of opinion on that. I have wondered about the connection between the common sight of halal butchering that Muslims witness and the often-used threat of slitting a human throat, with a gesture of a finger across the throat, and the frequency in the Islamic world of death to humans by slitting throats. Muslims are not known for their kindness to animals. They also maintain a high level of domestic violence, practice cruelty in their code of punishment for transgressions against the sharia law and use extreme cruelty on their enemies, ie slitting throats. I see a connection in all of this blood-letting and violence.
Off topic but check this flash presentation out:
http://www.bushflash.com/pl_lo.html
"First, although halal meat is all over the place, please remember that it is a very cruel method in which to kill animals, slitting of a concious animal's throat."
You should know that Jews slaughter their animals in the same manner. Will that change your opinion in anyway or is it only bad when Muslims do it?
First of all I should point out that Kosher slaughter as practiced by Jews is pretty similar to Halal at least in the general outline. And you don't real many stories about Jews cutting people's throats.
I should also point out that in Israel at least some of the Real Burger king stores are Kosher (the ones in Jerusalem at least are)
To be honest except for the trademark issues I don't see what the story is. And as for the trademark issues Burger King is a big company who can hire a french lawfirm if they care (G-d knows I don't)
First of all I should point out that Kosher slaughter as practiced by Jews is pretty similar to Halal at least in the general outline. And you don't real many stories about Jews cutting people's throats.
I should also point out that in Israel at least some of the Real Burger king stores are Kosher (the ones in Jerusalem at least are)
To be honest except for the trademark issues I don't see what the story is. And as for the trademark issues Burger King is a big company who can hire a french lawfirm if they care (G-d knows I don't)
DCWatson, "Taqiyya Bell" That's GREAT!!
Yes, they can watch TV. But to avoid those prohibited images, the TV only shows a test pattern.
There is one BIG difference between shechita (Jewish kosher slaughter) and halal. Shechita is carried out by a trained professional (shochat in Hebrew, shoichet or schechter in Yiddish) whose duty it is to carry out the slaughter in a painless fashion (as well as checks afterwards that the meat is fit for consumption). If an average Jew carries out slaughter in the same fashion the meat is not kosher.
By contrast, any male Muslim can take a dull knife and slowly saw off the head of a sheep --- and the meat will be halal. (In fact, annual private "home slaughtering" of sheep for the Islamic Feast of Offerings became an aminal rights scandal in Belgium.)
There is no intrinsic reason why Muslims couldn't come up with their equivalent of a shochet. (In fact, observant Muslims in heavily Jewish environments like Israel will eat kosher meat since it is considered automatically halal.) But of course to do so would require them caring about animal rights...
And yes, you may have heard something of an animal cruelty scandal at a kosher abattoir in the States. The struggle against this say some very unusual bedfellows: PETA and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations...
BTW, Israel had its own kosher McDonalds and Burger King knockoffs: McDavid and Burger Ranch. These chains took big hits when the real things opened branches in Israel (including kosher ones). McDavid (which sucked eggs) went belly-up, I believe: Burger Ranch (founded by Argentinian immigrants, who presumably know something about meat) is still around.
And yes, here too, you wonder why people want American burgers when there's plenty of Middle Eastern fast food (shoarma, chumus, falafel, you name it). Part of it is superficial love for the superficial features of American culture (anti-Americanism in Israel is basically the province of our self-hating looney left), part of it is the image of hygiene and cleanliness associated with these food products.