Friday, May 06, 2011

Halal: It’s Just Not Kosher

Efforts to ban halal slaughter are underway in most Western countries. The fact that unmarked halal meat has come to dominate the market in some Western European countries has provoked outrage among animal-rights activists who object to the treatment of animals slaughtered under halal rules. The result has been a “strange bedfellows” scenario, with anti-jihad activists and animal-rights people taking the same side of the issue.

Since halal slaughter and kosher slaughter bear some resemblance to each other — especially in the minds of Western Christians and secular people — most moves to ban halal would also place the same restrictions on kosher products. From a practical political standpoint, obtaining a ban on halal would be very difficult without also banning kosher.

Brian of London tackles this thorny topic in an article posted today at Israellycool. He looks at the issue of a halal food in the larger context of the Islamic push for domination in Western countries.


Halal: It’s Just Not Kosher
by Brian of London


Over the coming months we will see attempts to ban halal slaughter in Europe. But they won’t be worded in such a way to target only halal, they’ll probably go after something nebulous like “ritual slaughter” or “religious slaughter without stunning”. If that happens (as is ongoing in New Zealand) it will more likely than not deprive European Jews of kosher meat and make very little difference to the lives of farm animals.

This essay will be general but will draw specific examples from the UK.

As much as Muslims like to talk about halal, it is not a religious requirement in the same way as kosher has been to Jews for thousands of years. There is conclusive historical and archeological evidence across Israel and anywhere else Jews lived, that the rules of “Shechita” have been followed in an unaltered form for millennia. The mere fact that kosher food is perfectly acceptable to Muslims while halal is not acceptable to Jews shows the Muslim requirement has a certain inherent flexibility born of political expediency. The Jewish laws do not yield for convenience or to achieve other goals. Halal has also been flexible enough to include “light stunning” which has been enough to sidestep a ban in New Zealand. A very large proportion of the lamb consumed in the middle east is actually New Zealand lamb and in the UK this halal lamb is nearly always sold unmarked in big supermarkets.

The global counter Jihad movement is going to face a tough choice over this issue. On the one side is the long respected freedom to practice religion where that freedom doesn’t harm others. On the other will be those who feel the rights of animals need to be elevated to the level or even above the level of humans.

Here are some points to remember:

  • Modern farming methods relating to animals, especially when one is considering mass produced meat at cheaper prices, are not pleasant. It is firmly in the interests of very big agro-businesses to obfuscate and conceal exactly what goes on to produce the mass produced chicken that can be sold at the very cheap prices we currently enjoy.
  • In order to treat animals as if they were pets, prior to their slaughter for consumption, requires an investment in those animals that is only worthwhile if consumers will pay a hefty extra price for their meat. Some consumers will and people do choose free range or organic meat trusting that the various certification schemes do keep the farmers honest. In the end, however, unless you know the farmer or have some connection to the food production yourself, you’re trusting someone else to vouch that your meat is produced in a way you can accept.
  • That is a similar act of trust that Jews place in the Kashrut Authorities who certify their kosher food has been produced in accordance with Jewish principles of animal welfare and cleanliness.
  • There are a multitude of groups and movements working for better treatment of animals at many points of the spectrum from mildly reproachful to physical dangerous. Just because, on the issue of halal, you may agree with them, does not necessarily mean a movement to educate people about Islam needs to take up their causes.
  • There have been real acts of terrorism, violence and even murder committed in the name of animal rights.

This is the big question: if the global counter Jihad movement wants to oppose the spread of Islam and Sharia into the lives of non Muslims, is it necessary to get involved in the details of animal treatment or is it enough to realise the drive for halal food and its encroachment into public life is the real problem?

Jewish respect for animals

I would put forward that Judaism, as a religion, has done more for the good treatment of animals than any before or since. The militant atheists will argue that all religion is evil but, without being particularly observant myself, I know enough about Jewish philosophy to know they are wrong. I know Islam too and that is where the problem comes in. For example, Judaism has always prohibited hunting for fun which is certainly not something Islam copied. Indeed, the only sports acceptable to the most observant or extreme Muslims all derive from hunting: archery and horsemanship are specifically mandated for good Muslims in the stories about Muhammad! By contrast, Judaism specifically prohibits cruelty (causing pain for pleasure) and it’s clear from many things done in the name of Islam, this is not observed in Islam.

Why do kosher and halal rules appear similar?

What Muhammad stole from the Jews who resided in the Arabian peninsula in the 7th century (aside from their wives, daughters, property and lives) were scattered snatches of their stories and oral law. These were mangled and mis-represented to form the Koran. That Muhammad (and don’t get me started on whether he was a single real person or an amalgamated construct) knew to place the Arabs as illegitimate descendants of the slave girl in the Hebrew bible story of Abraham was a stroke of pure genius. In all probability, the Jews had already worked this out as a separation of the Semitic people into Jews and others (who would always be more numerous).

Almost every aspect of Islam has its roots in Judaism but every time you study the detail, superficial surface similarities hide a complete inversion of right and wrong, and a complete perversion of the reasons for the activity in question. Halal represents an attempt to take over and dominate the food of the infidel. By contrast, kosher is an introverted wish by Jews to honour their creator by following His laws (and some other internal philosophical reasons more observant Jews than myself can explain to you).

If we do not discriminate and recognise that Islam as a belief system has a dark, supremacist element that is unique to it, we are liable to destroy important parts of the foundations that have made our civilisation the greatest and kindest that has ever been. No civilisation has ever considered the rights of animals to the extent that we do now and this is not an accident. Islam has rarely been kind to people, let alone animals.

What is the purpose of Halal in the Non-Muslim world?

There is another issue here about the real purpose of halal outside of Muslim countries. As a general rule Jews and other groups with special dietary rules have not asked for their food to be served in public places outside their home countries. Jews outside of Israel adapt themselves to the food available in public institutions such as hospitals and schools often by eating vegetarian options. Even in neighbourhoods where Jews form a very high proportion of the population, there are hardly any demands to change the catering in public institutions.

By contrast, halal has made serious inroads into institutional mass catering in the UK. There are now numerous examples where non-Muslims looking for meat are given no other choice but to eat halal food in public institutions such as schools and hospitals. This has never happened with kosher food and nobody has ever seriously forced, for example, a vegan option on an un-willing population.

It’s all about control

There is a significant point of view that says halal food is all about a bid to take over and control the food supply. Animals must have an Arabic prayer said as they are killed and this must be performed by a Muslim. In effect halal mandates that Muslims perform most of the tasks involved in the production of the food.

What would strict labelling mean?

One of the ways that people are calling for some introduction of control on the spread of halal meat is by calling for strict labelling of meat that is not stunned before slaughter. There is a particular issue with halal today because there is a large amount of halal meat in the normal food chain that is not labeled as such. This is not such an issue with kosher meat except in one respect. Fully kosher meat is always much more expensive than non kosher and this reflects the small nature of its market and the care with which it has to be produced. Halal is generally cheaper than non halal. Some parts of kosher slaughtered animals do end up in the non-kosher meat supply, however, because this does help keep kosher meat affordable.

So strict labelling would be a problem for Jews if it meant that producers of meat pies and sausages were reluctant to accept some meat because it would force them to label their end product as containing some parts from non-stunned animals.

When was the last time a major nation banned kosher slaughter in Europe?

Today there are some bans on kosher slaughter already in Europe, especially in Scandinavian countries. The last major European nation to completely ban kosher slaughter was, of course, Nazi Germany. The following passage from Melanie Phillips’ excellent book The World Turned Upside Down develops this even further into what some may find a surprising reverence for animal life among Nazis.

Such ecological fixations were further developed in German Nazism. According to Ernst Lehmann, a leading Nazi biologist, “separating humanity from nature, from the whole of life, leads to humankind’s own destruction and to the death of nations.”[i] The Nazis thus fixated on organic food, personal health and animal welfare. Heinrich Himmler was a certified animal rights activist and an aggressive promoter of “natural healing”; Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy, championed homeopathy and herbal remedies; Hitler wanted to turn the entire nation vegetarian as a response to the unhealthiness promoted by capitalism.[ii]

There was top-level Nazi support for ecological ideas at both ministerial and administrative levels. Alwin Seifert, for example, was a motorway architect who specialized in “embedding motorways organically into the landscape.” Following Rudolf Steiner, he argued against land reclamation and drainage; said that “classical scientific farming” was a nineteenth-century practice unsuited to the new era and that artificial fertilizers, fodder and insecticides were poisonous; and called for an agricultural revolution towards “a more peasant-like, natural, simple” method of farming “independent of capital.” Himmler established experimental organic farms including one at Dachau that grew herbs for SS medicines; a complete list of homeopathic doctors in Germany was compiled for him; and antivivisection laws were passed on his insistence. As Anna Bramwell observes, “SS training included a respect for animal life of near Buddhist proportions.”[iii]

They did not show such respect, of course, for the human race. Neither does the ecological movement, for which, echoing Malthus, the planet’s biggest problem is the people living on it. Even though our contemporary era has been forged in a determination that fascism must never rise again, certain völkish ideas that were central to fascism—about the organic harmony of the earth, the elevation of animal “rights” and the denigration of humans as enemies of nature—are today presented as the acme of progressive thinking.

[i] Staudenmaier, “Fascist Ecology.”
[ii] Goldberg, Liberal Fascism, pp, 385—87.
[iii] Bramwell, Ecology in the 20th Century, p. 204.

What does this mean for the Counter Jihad?

We need to decide if fighting a battle for what some believe is better treatment of animals has any place in resisting the spread of Islam and Sharia. Just as with the issue of immigration we ask is the counter Jihad about immigration in general or only about Islamic immigration with a goal of eventual domination?

It’s my belief that people interested in taking up the cause of animal rights should do this distinctly from the cause of resisting Islam and Sharia. However, for the counter Jihad, halal slaughter is not an issue of animal treatment. It is an issue of an attempt to take over and dominate the food of infidels and impose on them, against their will, submission to the laws of Islam. That is unacceptable and should be resisted without infringing the legitimate rights of real religious practice.

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

There's another major country which has banned kosher slaughter in Europe : Switzerland.

It was voted out by the people more than a century ago, and the law still holds. By the way, this also forbids hallal slaughter.

At least one "Swiss" hallal butcher made a marketing niche out of it by importing hallal meat from abroad -- presumably France.

AMDG said...

> By contrast, kosher is an introverted wish by Jews to honour their creator by following His laws (and some other internal philosophical reasons more observant Jews than myself can explain to you).

Well, there can be no philosophical reason why the pork meat is impure or why hake can be eaten but squid cannot, or why the creator is not honored when eating meat cooked with butter.

I have read other arguments:

The Rabbinical Centre of Europe worries that non-Jews could be turned off by meat with the proposed labelling, causing a financial drain for the kosher industry.

When a shechita slaughter goes wrong, making the meat not kosher, a slaughterhouse will still sell the steak or chicken filet to a non-Jewish market without a kosher label.

Without that non-Jewish business, the Rabbinical Centre of Europe fears that slaughterhouses would hike their prices, which would in turn force the kosher industry to increase its own prices for Jewish customers.

"Funds from kosher food are an important contribution to Jewish institutions in Europe, the lack of these funds will mean the closure of many institutions which in turn will severely restrict Jewish life on the continent," said Rabbi Goldberg.


From here.

So, we the goyim are expected by the observant Jews to eat the kosher meat gone wrong, and without knowing it. No, I DO NOT WANT TO DO IT.

This is of course an excuse. It cannot go wrong so frequently, and if it does, they should implemented better procedures. The issue here is the financing of the lobbies of those “introverted Jews”. I do not want to fund them more than they would like to fund Catholic missionaries in Israel.

All this is Phariseism and the duty of a reasonable person is to denounce it. I see that many prefer to suffer it. They are free to do it, but if they want to justify it, they should look for good arguments.

wheatington said...

When you go to buy meat at the supermarket or when you order in a restaurant inquire if the meat is halal. If it is, walk out.
We kafirs wield a lot of economic power; let's use it.

Zenster said...

wheatington: When you go to buy meat at the supermarket or when you order in a restaurant inquire if the meat is halal. If it is, walk out.

We kafirs wield a lot of economic power; let's use it.


May I suggest making said inquiry about three minutes after having placed one's order? That way the cut is already on the grill and may have to be discarded.

You are absolutely right about the need to vote with one's pocketbook. Fewer non-physical punches hit harder.

Zenster said...

As to this entire Halal versus Kosher mess:

This is one time where the Jews are just going to have to suck it up.

I have an immense respect for Hebrew culture but my patience is at an end when it comes to Islam. If banning both Kosher and Halal slaughter under the same pretense is required to make Muslims feel unwelcome, then so be it.

Jews have caused enough trouble of late to where they are now obliged to do some serious heavy lifting in the fight against Islam. Since they are one of the primary beneficiaries when it comes to eliminating this genocidal threat, such a notion should be a no-brainer.

Once Islam is permanently maimed and crippled to where it is no longer capable of doing harm, bring back Kosher slaughter. I have zero problem with that.

However, right now the priority is on making the entire West Muslim unfriendly. Until that goal is achieved everybody, including the Jews, will be required to make some sacrifices.

Lawrence said...

Jews are the ones stuck the hardest by this. Islamists will just invent a way around it, I'm sure.

Anonymous said...

Clear labelling would go a long way. And what about the jizya? I don't mind buying vegetarian food that includes a kosher sticker--if a little of my money goes off to the Kashrut Council, at least I know it's not going to come back to me as explosive when I'm least expecting it. But surely this halal business means someone pays to a halal certifier?

JIZYA FREE!
No halal for me!

Zenster said...

Lawrence: Jews are the ones stuck the hardest by this. Islamists will just invent a way around it, I'm sure.

So why the abject pessimism?

How about encouraging any and all measures that increase the discomfort of Muslims in Western countries?

Yes, Muslims with their kitman and taqiyya will surely devise some artifice which circumvents such a measure. In fact, they already have such a device. The ummah is allowed to consume alcohol, pork and every other imaginable haram sort of tripe just so long as they perpetuate jihad.

Should that discourage us from banning Halal slaughter?
In no way!

Send a clear message to Muslims that what they practice, especially shari'a law, is not welcome here in the West.

Zenster said...

Salome: But surely this halal business means someone pays to a halal certifier?

Congratulations, Salome! Here, you get to the matter's heart.

All Halal slaughter houses are obliged by the Qur'an to contribute zakat (i.e., tithing), which automatically must direct a portion of its take towards jihad.

What better way to disgrace and discredit Halal slaughter than by connecting it, through Qar'anic doctrine, to financial contributions that assist global terrorism?

It is long past tea to link Halal butchery with the zakat that contributes untold billions of dollars towards Islamic terrorism.

Profitsbeard said...

A wise man put the kibosh on all of this dietary drivel 2000 years ago when he said:

"It's not what goes into a person's mouth, but what comes out of it, that makes them 'unclean'."

Hocus-pocus halal and alakazam kosher are symptoms of human silliness apotheosized.

I think it was all begun by crafty telepathic porkers.

Pierre_Picaud said...

Forgive me but you are all misguided. The true significance of Halal slaughter is none of these things.

It is not the libertarian argument, or the ethnic practise, its not about labelling, or animal cruelty.

The true significance of Halal is the one we never talk about: its theological one.

Kosher and Halal slaughter are virtually identical but the later has an additional and much more chilling component, mark it, and mark it well.

In Islam, even the lamb which provides the chop on your dinner plate must have its throat cut... in his (allah's) name.

Yahweh's name is not invoked in kosher slaughter. This is the difference. And it is profound.

Halal presents us with the undeniable truth of the Islamic god, and it cannot be taqiyya-s away: he demands blood. And that it be shed in his name.

Communicate this fact about halal to those dubious of anti-islamicism. It is a very powerful conveyor of the "arterial reality" at the heart of Islam; and it is hard to argue against.

Nilk said...

Pierre and Profitsbeard are both correct, but there is also the secular aspect with halal.

When abattoirs are mass-producing halal, then they have to have discriminatory employment practices.

Only muslims on the killing floor, only muslims overseeing the process, only muslims certifying the meat, and for a new meatworks, well it's got to be constructed in accordance with islamic (sharia) principles and facing the correct way.

How is this appropriate in our days of equality and freedom of choice? How is it that such a tiny percentage of the population are allowed to have such leverage over something as vital as our food supply and what goes into it?

Add to that the muslim slaughtermen get paid extra for the halal butchering, then you also have discrepencies in remuneration.

Again, fair and equitable not. Regardless of your beliefs.

Anonymous said...

You're right, Zenster--it is indeed zakat when paid by the halal abattoir, but it's jizya (or stealth jizya) when paid by unwitting infidels. I'm having roast pork tomorrow for Mothers' Day. I'd like to do lamb, but can't trust it.

zamre said...

it's ok.
Zamre Bin Ab. Wahab

Anonymous said...

Here is WHY non-Muslims should care about the introduction of any halal food into the West.

I read a great anti-halal essay that explained that halal food contributes to four significant problems - independent of animal cruelty or religious issues.

The first problem is an employment fairness issue. Halal slaughter requires that Muslims perform all halal rituals. The end result is that Muslims begin to "take over" food production jobs of a nation. The idea that Muslims - who wish to eliminate non-Muslims - control any aspect of non-Muslim food production is disturbing.

The second problem is a terrorist funding issue. All halal products require the monetary purchase of halal certification from a major Muslim entity - and some of that money inevitably supports terror efforts against the West.

Anonymous said...

The third problem is a Muslim immigration scam. Evidently, halal slaughter requires Western nations to import halal butchers from Muslim nations. The scam is that the halal butchers QUIT as soon as they receive their Western immigration status - requiring the constant importation of halal butchers from - you guessed it - Muslim nations.

The fourth problem is that - where Western countries have banned guns but allow knives - halal butchers can use their butchering skills as very effective human murderers. In essence, the importation of halal butchers is the importation of devout Muslims who would make extremely effective foot soldiers in a fighting war.

In the meantime, halal butchers use their butchering skills to commit violent crimes in the West - halal human slaughters which go unreported by the main stream media.

Halal Murder of Humans

KGS said...

AMDG: "So, we the goyim are expected by the observant Jews to eat the kosher meat gone wrong, and without knowing it. No, I DO NOT WANT TO DO IT."

AMDG has it wrong, there is noting wrong with the meat to eat, unless he's an observant Jew that, which he's not.

AMDG is grasping at straws here. Why?

Lawrence said...

Zenster... Send a clear message to Muslims that what they practice, especially shari'a law, is not welcome here in the West.

When we react to their culture in ways like this, ways they can just circumvent, it sends no message other that we are foolish.

If it hampers Jews but Islamists can get around it, the Islamists will think it a win for them. Even a validation, of a sort, which they can construe as reasoning that God is clearly on their side.

However, banning the practice because of animal rights, or some other "western" reason might be of some use to us.

It doesn't really matter when it comes to Islamists, they'll just paint the action as a foolish reaction on our part, and they'll invent a way around it as you clearly articulate.

So... as we discussed with Ann B. The target of our messages here is PC politicians striving to accommodate Islam rather than fight it.

We the people, of our respective nations, have to send a message to our politicians that we refuse to roll-over to their blind acceptance of a take-over by Islamic culture.

Yeah, we need to be nice, but in being too nice to them we run the risk of voluntarily placing our own necks on their chopping block. Which is exactly what the Islamists want us to do.

meccano said...

Halal and Kosher is barbaric and does not belong in the 21st century period. It's superstitious nonsense and cruel. If you are going to eat a sentient animal ensure it is raised as humanely as possible and dispatched efficiently and with minimum fuss, preferably pre stunned.This does not mean farm animals need to be "treated like pets". Slitting throats to the tune of a crazed cleric warbling to his sky daddy while the unfortunate terrified creature slowly bleeds to death is just ridiculous. As is the argument that Kosher is less cruel or better than Halal. The anti-jihad movement would be wise to try and make allies of people who are concerned about animal welfare. Branding these people Nazis because Hitler was vegetarian is lame.

Hesperado said...

I think this whole business of raising our hackles at halal practices and its larger sharia context is misplaced, based on erroneous assumptions, and potentially counterproductive to our movement.

I don't care if a religion or cult or organization has ideas & practices that are 1) silly, 2) ridiculous, 3) repugnant to reason -- as long as they don't break our laws.

And even if they broke our laws, if the laws they broke were minor and only involved, for example, the use of peyote in American Indian rituals (which the Supreme Court ruled illegal) or refusing to go be drafted in the military or refusing blood transfusions (Jehovah's Witnesses) -- again, these kinds of minor illegalities don't concern me. Similarly, I am only mildly concerned about a religion or cult that happens to abuse animals but does not pose any threat to humans. That would be a sociopolitical concern, to be sure, but hardly an emergency.

So if there were an Islam whose members only practiced the kooky but relatively benign things they do (halal butchery, avoiding certain products like certain shampoos, entering bathrooms with the left foot, facing perpendicularly to Mecca while urinating and defecating, inserting a plug into the anus of the deceased to prevent demons from entering, etc.), I wouldn't care about them and would allow them to be in our society.

The problem is not the irrational kookiness of Islam; the problem is

1) its scriptural dictates of using violence (and cleverly false non-violence only when too weak to use outright violence) to further the aim of supremacist expansionism with the intent to eventually engulf the glob.

2) its psycho-social culture of fanatical reverence for its scriptural dictates (both in the Koran and the Sunna) by which #1 becomes too often activated among innumerable members all over the world, with highly deadly intent and consequences, whom we cannot distinguish from those members who may putatively be harmless.

The other claptrap of Islam that comes along with these two primary dangers is incidental. We should keep our eye on the ball. To paraphrase a famous phrase: It's the Violence, Stupid.

Anonymous said...

Hesperado :

Actually, no. It's not only the violence. Unless you count as violence the surreptitious bullying which goes on under the radar and which is a tool to grab power.

Of which hallal is but one example.

If Muslims were happy with eating their own hallal food without throwing their weight around about the subject, and making a permanent fuss over it, just the way Jews do with kosher, that would be fine.

However, hallal has nothing to do with meat, just as the veil has nothing to do with clothing.

The aim of hallal is to intimidate everybody else -- Muslims and non-Muslims alike -- into abiding by Islamic law.

This has become obvious in Europe, where hallal has been imposed upon non-Muslims in schools, fast-food outlets or even retail.

Muslims could come out tomorrow with any new rule. They could say you need to stick a feather in your rear end, because Islam wants you to.

And it would work exactly the same way as hallal. They would find a way to use the feather-in-your-arse "religious obligation" as a weapon to gain power over non-Muslims and subjugate them.

So, no, it's not about the quality of meat or the welfare of animals (although both are legitimate worries for us). It's about power and conquest.

Zenster said...

Robert Marchenoir: However, hallal has nothing to do with meat, just as the veil has nothing to do with clothing.

The aim of hallal is to intimidate everybody else -- Muslims and non-Muslims alike -- into abiding by Islamic law.


Touché.

Banning halal slaughter is about rejecting shari'a law and making Muslims feel unwelcome in the West. Full stop.

Using the sympathies of an otherwise barking-mad animal rights movement is just one lesson that the counterjihad will have to learn as it figures out how to integrate the existing but disparate axes that must eventually be aligned in order to reject Islam in the West.

goethechosemercy said...

Quote:
Only muslims on the killing floor, only muslims overseeing the process, only muslims certifying the meat, and for a new meatworks, well it's got to be constructed in accordance with islamic (sharia) principles and facing the correct way.
end quote.

All Halal slaughter is practice for
Jihad.
The animals today.
The infidels tomorrow.

lucy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
lucy said...

The incredible thing about Australian tax payer funded multiculturalism is that the health industry, which I have worked in for years, never had a large enough market to be asked to provide kosher meals to hospital patients. Within only a few years of a large muslim presence in Australia, Ausssie socialised medicine (hospitals) are now provided tax payer funded halal meals... and our tax payer funded educational centres are provided tax payer funded halal meals as well to our kids.

Hesperado said...

Robert Marchenoir,

"Actually, no. It's not only the violence. Unless you count as violence the surreptitious bullying which goes on under the radar and which is a tool to grab power."

Surreptitious bullying without violence is impotent -- unless the society it is targeting is stupid enough to kowtow to the demands behind the bullying. In that case (a group that bullies but never does any violence yet somehow still gets its demands met by the larger society), the responsibility of the problem is all on the shoulders of the surrounding society, not the bullying (yet non-violent) group. The crucial sine qua non factor that makes a bullying group a problem is if it employs and threatens to employ violence.

"Of which hallal is but one example."

Ditto. It's not the non-violent parts of halal demands that are a problem; it's the violent teeth Muslims use (either in practice and/or in threats which we take seriously because so many attacks have already succeeded) to back up those demands that make the non-violent halal demands a problem, as part of the warp & woof of the unified system that necessarily includes violence -- and not merely violence, but violence in the service of geopolitical supremacist expansionism, which is worse and more dangerous than ordinary criminality, gangsterism and hooliganism.

[cont.]

Hesperado said...

[cont.]

"If Muslims were happy with eating their own hallal food without throwing their weight around about the subject, and making a permanent fuss over it, just the way Jews do with kosher, that would be fine."

Again, a group that merely "throws their weight around" but does not back that "weight" up with violence, is still a harmless group. Free societies like ours allow people to be rude, obnoxious and make childish demands. We allow them, then we ignore them -- if they are not going to escalate into violence, that is. It is the escalation of "weight-throwing" and bullying into actual violence and other crimes that makes them problematic. Without the violence, they are only a nuisance, but not a problem -- much less a danger or a societal emergency.

"However, hallal has nothing to do with meat, just as the veil has nothing to do with clothing.
The aim of hallal is to intimidate everybody else -- Muslims and non-Muslims alike -- into abiding by Islamic law."

If a group had an aim to intimidate their surrounding society to adopt their ways and/or submit to them -- but this group never lifted a finger of violence and had no intention to, they would simply remain a harmless nuisance, an annoying curiosity, and society would ignore them -- unless they committed a crime, of course (like verbally haranguing people inside an office building lobby). Again, it is only when violence is added to that behavior -- and the prospect of much larger-scale violence on the order of attacks of public places resulting in mass-murder, when mere nuisance rises to the threshold of a public danger that needs to be stopped.

The metaphor or analogy of halal/sharia to violent Islam would be something like the following:

Imagine a violent madman who has been terrorizing a village, stabbing random people to death. This madman also has a sack of purple eggs which he demands be placed in shop windows of the village. In such a circumstance, his demands about the purple eggs are a peripheral distraction to the main problem: his activity of randomly murdering and maiming people.

If on the other hand there were a non-violent madman who never hurt a fly, but went around town demanding that purple eggs be put in shop windows, people would laugh at him, tell him firmly "No", or just ignore him -- and the madman, being non-violent, would do nothing more about it except continue to stand in the village square making his demands verbally. Eventually, perhaps, the city council might pass an ordinance asking to fine the madman for being a public nuisance, but the whole situation would hardly be a big problem, much less a danger or societal emergency.