Islam Dispatches Santa, the Bible and Winnie the Pooh October 3, 2005
Islam Dispatches Santa, the Bible, and Winnie the Pooh I noted in my column this week, " <http://www.danielpipes.org/article/2989> Enforce Islamic Law in Canada?" that "efforts to integrate Muslims into the West [often] upset a benign status quo" and gave as one example the banning of <http://app1.chinadaily.com.cn/star/2002/1219/fe20-1.html> Santas, <http://www.telegraphindia.com/1041210/asp/foreign/story_4109788.asp> Nativity plays, Christmas carols, and <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/06/03/nbible03.xm l> Bibles so as not to offend Muslim sensitivities. Here I will catalogue other proscribed items as they come to my attention. Piglet's problems. <http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2005450600,00.html> Representation of pigs: The benefits department at Dudley Council, West Midlands, instructed employees that all pig-related novelty items are henceforth banned from its offices, so as not to offend Muslim staff. This includes pig toys, porcelain figures, calendars, and even a tissue box featuring Winnie the Pooh and Piglet. There's no mention of piggybanks, but presumably those must go too. The edict came down after a Muslim complained. Councillor Mahbubur Rahman endorsed the ban: "It's a tolerance of people's beliefs." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/england/2818809.stm> Pig stories: In March 2003, Head Teacher Barbara Harris at Park Road Junior Infant and Nursery School in Batley, West Yorkshire, banned books containing stories about pigs, out of a desire not to offend the Muslim children who make up about 60 percent of the school's pupils. Harris issued a statement: "Recently I have been aware of an occasion where young Muslim children in class were read stories about pigs. We try to be sensitive to the fact that for Muslims talk of pigs is offensive." She sent a memo to staff saying fiction books containing stories about pigs should be removed from classrooms but the books "remain in the school library and there is nothing to stop our younger children having stories such as 'The Three Little Pigs' in small groups." The Open University in Britain has spawned an <http://www.opinion.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/09/ 09/do0901.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2005/09/09/ixopinion.html> Arab Open University, based in Kuwait, with students primarily in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The contents of the two institutions' teachings are revealingly different, Ferdinand Mount notes in the Daily Telegraph, with the latter "to a greater or lesser extent, adapted, expurgated and bowdlerised in order to avoid offending the authorities in their target countries." This process, known as "versioning," means that all references to pork, alcohol, homosexuality, and unmarried mothers have to be deleted from texts. "Bizarrely, any mention of football stadia seems to be forbidden, too." Darwinian theory is taught but accompanied by a statement of the Islamic doctrine of creation. Paintings by J.M.W. Turner have been excluded. Analyses of selling bras and alcohol got dropped. Mount adds that staff at the OU in Britain appear to feel absolutely no unease or discomfort at all this. They even post news of their latest versioning efforts on the web. When Anthony Williams, an OU postgraduate student, wrote to complain to the secretary and the vice-chancellor, and then to the chancellor, the blessed Betty Boothroyd, they all replied politely, but seemed bemused by his indignation. The university's senate, HEFCE, the QAA, even the DfES itself - the entire educational alphabet in fact - seems to have waved through this wholesale censorship without a second thought. (October 3, 2005) Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers has forbidden British prison officers from wearing a <http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/10/04/britain.redcross/index.html> St. George's Cross tie-pin, although it is the national flag of England, due to its connection to the Crusades. Chris Doyle, director of the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding, approved of the step, noting that "A lot of Muslims and Arabs view the Crusades as a bloody episode in our history," Doyle added that it was now time for England to find a new flag and a patron saint who is "not associated with our bloody past and one we can all identify with." (October 4, 2005) Schools in Hillsborough, Florida, for years had <http://www.sptimes.com/2005/10/13/Tampabay/School_time_off_may_g.shtml> vacation days on Good Friday, the Monday after Easter, and Yom Kippur, but when the Council on American-Islamic Relations asked that Eid al-Fitr be added, the school board decided (by a 5-1 vote) to go with a secular calendar for 2006-07 that takes away student vacation days for religious holidays, with the exception of Christmas. The three Christian and Jewish holidays will be replaced with Presidents Day and two days between spring break and the last day of school. The board members like the new calendar, saying it is more fair and preempts future requests from other religious groups: "I don't know where we're going to draw the line," board member Susan Valdes observed. Several Muslims said they feared Muslims will be blamed for taking away everyone's holidays. (October 13, 2005) Homer Simpson and donut If the Open University bowdlerizing is high comedy, <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB112925107943268353.html> Homer Simpson's is the low version. Yasmine El-Rashidi reports in the Wall Street Journal on the transformation of this legendary cartoon figure for an Arabic-speaking audience: "Omar Shamshoon," as he is called on the show, looks like the same Homer Simpson, but he has given up beer and bacon, which are both against Islam, and he no longer hangs out at "seedy bars with bums and lowlifes." In Arabia, Homer's beer is soda, and his hot dogs are barbequed Egyptian beef sausages. And the donut-shaped snacks he gobbles are the traditional Arab cookies called kahk. (October 14, 2005) All materials written by Daniel Pipes on this site C1980-2005 Daniel Pipes. meqmef (at) aol.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Fair play? 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