This is succinctly and superbly stated: “Let’s rediscover the virtue of choice. Of course Muslims should be free to have halal meat, and the rest of us should be free to demand non-halal meat – and to watch edgy plays and read blasphemous books. That’s how a modern democracy works: we tolerate minority faiths, and we also allow full freedom to dissent from those faiths, and to dodge and even mock their practices.” But this principle is rapidly being lost, in the U.S. as well as in Britain, amid a chorus of charges of “Islamophobia” leveled at anyone who dares look askance at the wholesale capitulation to Sharia by Pizza Express and others. The very idea that I am thought of as a “hate group leader” and am banned from Britain for defending the virtue of choice as Brendan O’Neill explains it here, as opposed to a surrender to Islamic supremacist demands, shows how bad things have gotten. And they’re going to get worse.
“My compulsory halal pizza is hard to swallow,” by Brendan O’Neill, Telegraph, May 8, 2014:
It turns out I am a regular consumer of halal meat. Despite being a godless former Catholic who would rather chew tin foil than read the Koran, I’ve been tucking into animals slaughtered in accordance with Islamic tradition. How come? It’s Pizza Express’s fault. I’m a fan of Pizza Express, especially its Pollo ad Astra pizza, and on Wednesday it was revealed that all of Pizza Express’s chicken is halal. So all those cajun-spiced pieces of plump white flesh I’ve been scoffing came from birds that had their throats slit while they were still alive as someone chanted “Allahu akbar” three times (though Pizza Express insists they are all stunned first).
Do I mind? Not particularly, but only because I’m not into the whole animal cruelty issue. All meat is a slaughtered beast, so it seems pointless to worry about how the creature in question was done in. But I can understand why others feel rattled by the revelation.
Rather than give its customers a choice over whether to have halal bird or more ethically bumped-off bird, Pizza Express served halal to everyone, without even telling them. The thinking seems to be that it’s better to make every Brit eat halal meat than it is to risk one Muslim accidentally eating non-halal meat.
The food-related sensitivities of 4.8 per cent of the British population should apparently trump the right of the other 95 per cent to choose whether to chomp birds cut up before death or after death. We’re entering an era of default halal, where more and more meat is made Muslim-friendly, just in case – in case a Muslim should eat a non-Islamic chicken wing and kick up a storm.
The sandwich shop Subway has also gone default halal, dishing up halal-only meat in 185 of its stores in the UK and taking ham and bacon off the menu. What about those of us who might want a delicious bit of pig-flesh in our 6in sarnie? Apparently our wishes come a poor second to the Muslim minority’s religious preferences. Many schools have gone default halal, too. Last year it was revealed that three quarters of schools in one London borough now feed their pupils halal grub only.
Social norms seem to be remoulding themselves around the concerns of a very small section of British society. The majority’s eating habits are being brought into line with those of a minority.
Yet anyone who criticises the phenomenon of default halal risks being branded an Islamophobe. Yesterday’s Guardian was scathing of critics of Pizza Express’s crafty feeding of halal chicken to all its patrons. This was a simple case of food outlets making their products more “acceptable” in a “changing Britain”, it said. This is a newspaper whose columnists bore on about where their food comes from. Yet as soon as someone says, “You know what, I think I’ll pass on that chicken that had its throat cut while it was still conscious”, the Guardian accuses them of being Muslim-haters. Imagine if every Strada in Britain secretly started smothering its dishes in cheese from a settlement in the West Bank? Bien pensant types would be amassing Molotov cocktails.
The argument now seems to be that if you don’t want to eat halal meat then you’re Islamophobic. In short, not being a Muslim is now an act of Islamophobia. Strewth.
The new era of default halal tells a fascinating story about cultural sensitivity in the 21st century. It reveals that it isn’t necessarily Muslim communities that are super-sensitive; rather it’s mainstream society itself – modern Britain, us – that increasingly feels the need to tiptoe around minority groups for fear, usually misplaced, that if we rile them they’ll go crazy.
So there haven’t been mass Muslim marches demanding that Pizza Express serve halal-only meat. Just as no Islamist uprising was required for the Barbican in London recently to cut from a play some dialogue it thought might be offensive to Muslims.
Instead, in each case, it was a pre-emptive fear of Muslim reaction, an internally generated panic about what might happen if a Muslim ate non-halal meat or watched a non-PC play, that encouraged institutions to dish up blessed meat and safe theatre only. Muslims aren’t holding modern Britain to ransom. No, modern Britain, unsure of itself, constantly exercises cultural caution, rewriting plays, curriculums and menus to placate what it perceives to be moody minorities who must never suffer any sort of emotional hurt.
Let’s rediscover the virtue of choice. Of course Muslims should be free to have halal meat, and the rest of us should be free to demand non-halal meat – and to watch edgy plays and read blasphemous books. That’s how a modern democracy works: we tolerate minority faiths, and we also allow full freedom to dissent from those faiths, and to dodge and even mock their practices.
mariam rove says
what a great article. M
Burt says
Indeed it is a great article – what a shame stating the bloody obvious is so rare by journalists these days, when we see basic common sense printed, we are forced to applaud it and remark how great it is.
mariam rove says
what a shame stating the bloody obvious is so rare….
you are sooooooooooooooooo correct on this one!!!! M
Burt says
On this one?…I’m right on everything Miriam 😉
Tony says
It’s self censorship!!!
dynamo says
Below is the response I posted in the Telegraph earlier today.
(By the way, for the information of you poor benighted colonials, “Tesco” is a leading supermarket brand here in the birthplace of democracy):
I have it on good authority that Tesco’s own-brand wafer buscuits are widely consumed in the British Muslim community. A spokesman for Tesco has admitted this morning that, during the production process, these wafers are routinely sanctified in accordance with Catholic rites. This ensures they are ready for use in the Mass.
According to the statement issued by Tesco, this is a simple case of a leading food outlet making its products more acceptable in a multicultural Britain. Columnists in the Guardian have condemned Muslims who object to being duped into eating the Body of Christ, labelling them Christianophobic.
“My compulsory halal pizza is hard to swallow” writes Brendan O’Neill in a generally balanced and objective piece in today’s Telegraph.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/brendanoneill2/100270578/my-compulsory-halal-pizza-is-hard-to-swallow/
On one key point, however, Mr O’Neill requires correction. He writes:
I isn’t necessarily Muslim communities that are super-sensitive; rather it’s mainstream society itself – modern Britain, us – that increasingly feels the need to tiptoe around minority groups for fear, usually misplaced, that if we rile them they’ll go crazy.
Whilst this fear is indeed usually misplaced, it is not always misplaced. And, when they go crazy, they do so in spades.
Pizza Express does not fear an angry letter from one of a hundred Muslims who have inadvertently consumed a haram meal. Rather, its Chief Executive fears having his head hacked off on the streets of London by a crazed fanatic who has never been near a Pizza Express.
Just in case we draw the right conclusions, the usual suspects have rushed into the debate to obscure the issue. On the Today programme this morning, the BBC forced a confession from a sheepish sounding vet, to the effect that halal slaughter is humane if the animal is stunned before, or immediately after (ye, gods!) its throat is cut.
Frankly, I don’t care much about the method of slaughter – if I objected to the killing of animals for food I’d be a vegetarian. But I’m not best pleased that my food has been prepared in an Islamic ritual – including the false claim Allahu akbar.
Allah is a figment of the imagination, and akbar he certainly ain’t.
Montedoro44 says
“… feels the need to tiptoe around minority groups for fear, …”
It’s not “minority groups” — it’s just one minority group.
St. Michael Defend Us says
“I have it on good authority that Tesco’s own-brand wafer buscuits are widely consumed in the British Muslim community. A spokesman for Tesco has admitted this morning that, during the production process, these wafers are routinely sanctified in accordance with Catholic rites. This ensures they are ready for use in the Mass.
According to the statement issued by Tesco, this is a simple case of a leading food outlet making its products more acceptable in a multicultural Britain. Columnists in the Guardian have condemned Muslims who object to being duped into eating the Body of Christ, labelling them Christianophobic.”
Ha-Ha-Ha. At least, I hope you KNOW this is a joke! An inversion of reality for ironic comic effect.
shosh7154 says
allah (in Hebrew the actual word means curse) Numbers 5:27 for those who want proof
and
allah is all too real but his original name is BAALZEVUV which in Hebrew means Lord of the Flies
Myxlplik says
“Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.”
Thomas Paine
The word Islam means voluntary submission. It’s what you do when you go Halal, you leave the world of reason for one of ignorance and submission.
mariam rove says
exactly. M
Alice says
Perfect and succint!
Alice says
Perfect and succinct!
Peter Buckley says
The answer is simple. Pizza Express is a commercial enterprise, so you hit them where it hurts: in the pocket.
https://www.facebook.com/BOYCOTTxHALAL
They will soon get the message………
mortimer says
A “changing Britain”?
Were the people asked if they wanted the change? Will they lose their jobs if they say they oppose the change? Will they be incarcerated if they oppose the change?
Is free expression dead? May I not question Islamic slaughter practices?
ARE ISLAMIC BLASPHEMY LAWS THE ‘DEFAULT POSITION’ IN BRITISH LAW?
Chabuco says
Now these sociopaths and their western comrades are talking about “halal hysteria” cause you know… in Muslim countries you can totally eat non-halal meat like pork and Muslims WOULDN’T riot and kill if restaurant chains start giving them pork disguised as halal meat, yep. Projection, it’s pathological when it comes to Muslim supremacist and their international socialist comrades
Truthsayer says
The objection to eating halal meat by non Muslims is not only the possibility of its inhumane slaughter but also having to be linked to an infantile practice. Traditionally, to be halal, the animal has its throat cut while it is still conscious and it dies from fright and blood loss. However, apparently some halal slaughter does take place after the animal is stunned with an electric current but to compete the halal process the slaughter man (who has to be a Muslim – yes equal opportunities have been disposed of here – where is the European court of human rights?) has to say ‘Bismillah Allah-hu-Akbar’ (meaning ‘In the name of Allah, who is the greatest’).
This is not a children’s fantasy story with the evil wicked witch waving spells over food to give it magcal properties. This is real time in the 21st century in a country governed by professional educated adults. Why is this cruel and infantile practice being allowed in an advanced society, and more importantly why is it being imposed upon the whole population without consent. Is there a belief that the magic spell will convert everyone to islam?
Would it not at least be better to wave the spell ‘Excitarecorpus’ in the hope of waking up the comatosed British or the spell ‘Tarantallegra’ to perhaps make them all dance. However that would mean using non-Muslim slaughterers – and that would be islamaphobic.
Michael Brennick says
I refuse any food products that have been desecrated with idoltraous Islamic “blessings”. I will not ingest anything that has been overseen by Islamists and their false religion that worships Mohammed, the false prophet.
dumbledoresarmy says
A thundering good article. Deserves to go viral.
Everyone here who has access to FB, etc, well, we all know what to do. Likes, likes, and more likes. Set it circulating.
The DT will rake in the clicks (their *advertisers* will be very happy) and maybe Mr O’Neill’s *next* article will be about all those kidnapped-by-Mohammedans and sold-as-slave-“wives” Nigerian girls, with a paragraph mentioning the eternally-valid-for-pious-Muslims example of the rapes of Aisha (aged 9), and of those war-booty sex-slaves Safiyya, Rayhana and Juwariyya.
dumbledoresarmy says
I love *this* bit.
“The argument now seems to be that if you don’t want to eat halal meat then you’re Islamophobic. ** In short, not being a Muslim is now an act of Islamophobia** {my emphasis – dda}. Strewth.”
Ezackly, Mr O’Neill. You’ve nailed it. That is, in fact, what all this sharia creep *is* ultimately about.
I wonder what Mr O’Neill would make of ex-Muslim Sam Solomon’s book, “Al Hijra: The Islamic Doctrine of Immigration”.
Maybe one of our British jihadwatchers might like to send him a copy.
dumbledoresarmy says
I went and had a look at the article in situ.
I observed, to my severe disappointment, but not really to my surprise, that Comments are now Closed, and that indeed no Comments were visible.
Bamaguje says
Indeed, I noticed that other Telegraph articles published on the same date (7/5/14) are still open for comments.
Obviously, the Orwellian thought police wasn’t happy with the trend of comments, so they shut it down.
I’m pretty sure they even regret publishing article.
Michael Copeland says
Perhaps someone could open a substitute Comments page/website to receive them.
Just a thought.
citycat says
This is more low level influence to conquer the infidel.
Those Muhammed vibes and thoughts and curses and ??? in the food, which to accept is surrender to Islam’s mind crap.
Halal is infectious, energy wise, and is psychological reinforcement of “taking the biscuit” with each mouthful. Don’t eat it. It has low vibes.
voegelinian says
The article is succinctly and superbly stated, but not perfectly so.
One problem:
Muslims aren’t holding modern Britain to ransom. No, modern Britain, unsure of itself, constantly exercises cultural caution…
Actually, it’s both. Muslims are trying to hold modern Britain ransom, and have been for years, through a variety of methods ranging all the way from mass murder (remember the Tube bombings?) to more diffuse violence over the years, to threats, to volatile demonstrations bristling with threats of violence, to various forms of taqiyya.
And modern Britain has been bending over backward and salaaming forward to help Muslims do this.
Without the latter, the former would not work (as long as we recognize that the “latter” would include harsher more invasive measures taken against Muslims, including halting immigration and deportation).
voegelinian says
correction: “without the latter” would include harsher measures; not “the latter”
PJG says
It’s not just the method of slaughter, which is bad enough.
It’s not just the prayer, which is offensive to Christians.
It’s much more than that: it’s the squillions of dollars they are making out of the halal certification racket, it’s the “Muslim-only” employees required to kill and sometimes (this advanced stage of the racket is starting to bite) drivers of food-transport vehicles who must also be Muslim, it’s the “halal port” in Rotterdam (the first?). And it’s the “halal eco-systems” rave new idea Muslims are pushing. Halal to conquer the non-Muslim world? Not such an outlandishly impossible plan. Read this for more:
http://www.monash.edu.au/monashmag/articles/february2014/halal-guide-to-consumer-faith.html#.U2RBXVdTVr0
Jax Tolmen says
I would like to add an increasing number of McDonald’s restaurants are doing the same thing – very rarely is any choice given to anyone about whether they can consume non – Halal meat. I have yet to see a Kosher McDonald’s – but I suppose that management is not afraid of mobs of angry Jews bombing their restaurants and attacking their staff.
It’s utterly ludicrous that everyone must be forced to pander to religious minorities. They do not have to eat at these places, and why should everyone be forced to eat their tripe.
My biggest issue with Halal is that it is effectively encouraging discriminatory hiring practices. If only Halal meat was available, then only Muslims could be butchers or operate and work at abattoirs.
dumbledoresarmy says
Jax, you wrote – “My biggest issue with Halal is that it is effectively encouraging discriminatory hiring practices. If only Halal meat was available, then only Muslims could be butchers or operate and work at abattoirs.”
Exactly. This has occurred to me, also.
This is the sort of point that we in the counter-jihad in Australia should be making to the *unions*. And the non-Muslim meat traders.
kirby smith says
Both Pizza Express and Subway insist that the animals are stunned first. How hard would it be to find out if this was true or not? Someone should go to the slaughter house where they buy their meats from and see firsthand! Let’s find out if they are lying or not. If so, put em out of business, because they can never be trusted for anything.
Twostellas says
Muhammed didn’t command Muslims to “instill terror” and boast about being victorious through terror for nothing.
No fear is the way. Especially of cowardly terrorism and of supremacist bravado hiding insecurity. Islamists show their weak and cowardly ways everyday.
Britain, you are better than this. To be defeated, suicide actually, by a bunch of loud-mouthed cowardly zealots? Really!?
Michael Copeland says
Have a look at Britain First:
https://www.facebook.com/britainfirstgb
277,000 “likes” and counting.
It is the government that is suicidal:
the people are forever ignored.
JENNIFER says
It’s not just the pizza parlour – it’s most of the major food outlets, including the supermarkets, and many schools.
A startling article in yesterday’s Daily Mail lists these shops, and says that Britain has been eating Muslim meat for years without knowing it – most places have no sign or label stating halal or kosher.
BE VEGETARIAN!
tpellow says
U.K-
“Now halal sneaks into our schools: Parents angered by move by councils to ban pork sausages and bacon and replace them with ritually-slaughtered meat.
“Hundreds of schools have banned pork – such as sausages and bacon.
“Families of other faiths and none have been angered and upset by move.
“Most cases halal meat served in schools comes from pre-stunned animals.”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2623860/Now-halal-sneaks-schools-Parents-angered-councils-ban-pork-sausages-bacon-replace-ritually-slaughtered-meat.html#ixzz31DaRiKoB
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
Victoria says
As a Christian I don’t want to eat any food that has been “sanctified” to a false god. Spiritually it is repulsive. As an American and a woman, I don’t want to contribute to the economic infrastructure of Islam in anyway. Count me out on the suicide pact.
Gleaner1 says
This piece starts with the assertion that ” muslims can of course have halal meat, not in MY country they can’t, we the people didn’t invite these people into Britain, our politicians did to “rub our noses in diversity” so therefore if they want halal, they can go somewhere else and get it.
Jewish slaughter too is unacceptable, our chief vet thinks so, so did the FAWC until Blair scrapped it in 2003.
NO Islam ,NO “practicing” their horrible “faith” because when they do, 52 people in London get killed, 700 get injured and thousands of our young girls get beaten and sold as sex slaves, THAT’s what “practicing their faith” means and this is their last chance to stop it and get out.