Sacred Animal Farm

 
No sacred cow here.What’s wrong with this picture?

If you’re a Christian or an atheist, nothing.

If you’re a Jew, unless you see it as a version of the golden calf and the restaurant patrons as worshippers, nothing.

If you’re a Muslim, and you’re one of the strict no-graven-images types who believes that all representative art is offensive to Allah, then you wouldn’t like it. Otherwise it would be fine.

If you’re a Hindu, though, since it’s a representation of the earthly form of your primary deity, you might well find it sacrilegious and offensive.

So devout Hindus in New Delhi are rioting to demand that the offending statue be removed, right? And hasn’t the restaurant owner received a death threat because of his blasphemy?

No? I wonder why not…

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The recent brouhaha over the cartoons depicting Mohammed published in a Danish newspaper reminds us of the consequences of impinging on the religious sensibilities of Muslims. Any prominent transgressor of Islamic strictures – for example, Theo Van Gogh or Salman Rushdie – is putting his life at risk.

Here in the ultra-tolerant heart of Western Civilization, no other religion demands so much special treatment. Nor does any other garner such fawning capitulation. In Britain the piggy banks must go. In Norway women must take into account the cultural characteristics of Muslim men, or risk rape. Muslims even want banks to issue interest-free loans, since the Koran bans usury.

For a counterpoint to all this, look at Christianity. Forget inadvertent offense: the examples of deliberate, calculated, and extreme attempts to offend Christians are legion within the popular culture. Even so, no Baptists are strapping on bomb belts and blowing themselves up in the Museum of Modern Art.

Not long ago, on my way towards the meat counter in a grocery store I passed a Hindu couple pushing their shopping cart up along the aisle. When I got to the beef section I noticed a little display sign showing a smiling cartoon cow holding up a steak on a platter and licking her chops in autophagous anticipation.

Surely, I thought, the Hindu couple must have found this display repugnant. The rows of raw red beef in packages might well have deeply disturbed their religious sensibilities. Yet there they were, calmly shopping!

No one was picketing the store. I didn’t have to pass through a metal detector to get in. Nobody firebombed the place the next day. No Hindu suicide bomber blew up the regional Food Lion headquarters.

Britain has its share of Hindus. If they are demanding an end to cow iconography, I haven’t heard about it. They’re not writing angry letters to Borough Councils demanding the removal of the “Cock and Bull” pub signs. If they mind the little cow pitchers that dispense milk in the tea rooms, they’re not making a loud noise about it.

Why is that? They’re just as much aliens in Britain as their Muslim counterparts. Until very recently they were indiscriminately designated “wogs” by the uncouth, along with their Pakistani neighbors. They’re just as entitled to politically correct redress of their grievances.

What makes Muslims different?

I’d like to be very politically incorrect and assert that Hindus are more civilized.

There. I said it, and the sky didn’t fall.

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Leaving aside for the moment why Hindus (and adherents of other religions) are less belligerent than Muslims, there still remains this question: Why do modern Western societies cave in so easily to Muslim demands, capitulating and appeasing at every opportunity?

Of all the major religions, only Islam is enjoined by its scripture to have a hair-trigger for violence. Add to that the traditional shame/honor tribal culture and you have a volatile and lethal mix.

And we in the West are so allergic to violence that the merest whiff of it sends us scurrying to the ethnic grievances dictionary to look up the “root causes.” Find the solution, apply the anodyne, build yet another ethnic outreach cultural center, designate a new Muslim school holiday, and then…

And then what? And then the Muslims won’t be mad at us any more?

Or will capitulating to their violent threats only lead to demands for more concessions, and then more again? Until at last the Caliphate is established and Shariah instituted and the Ummah becomes coterminous with the entire planet…

Pigs and cows. All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.

17 thoughts on “Sacred Animal Farm

  1. If that giant cow is in Texas, we ate there during one PCS. We have a picture of my whole family with that cow.

    And now that you mention it, we weren’t looking around warily waiting for a suicide bomber.

  2. The unspoken answer to your question Why do modern Western societies cave in so easily to Muslim demands, capitulating and appeasing at every opportunity? is of course cowardice (I’m especially thinking back to wretchard’s post about The Four Feathers concerning the “evolving” understanding of the word– [sorry, no link.])

    Not to get too predetermined and Norse on you, but I wonder if there is any way to interrupt the inverse relationship between the amount of luxury in a society and its ability to defend itself.

    You say we in the West are so allergic to violence, but of course some of us, though soft in bottom and round in belly, still have enough of Bill Whittle’s sheepdog in us to be disappointed when the noises outside in the dark that we rush out to meet, turn out only to be hungry possums or humping cats. So our brandished weapon falls unused to our side, our erstwhile glory wasted on unfocused adrenaline.

    Like Cooper’s Mohicans, we are quietly fading away, quaint relics who believe in things that were long since deconstructed.

    I probably feel this tug more than most, being a child of doubt and uncertainty, never having felt belief, but somehow knowing that it is the only hope for the dignity of man.

    The Muslims are wrong. The Muslims are crazy.

    But unless something has changed since Athens, since Rome, it’s hard to see the scenario where they don’t eventually win.

    Maybe my kids will hold them back for a generation or two. Maybe the internet can change everything.

    Of course, the 72 oz. steak would go a long way to adjusting my mood. But of course, I’ve got to watch my cholesterol.

  3. There is at least one bank in the Detroit area offering no-interest loans to Muslims (only), for business reasons, of course. They still get charged for the loans and actually end up paying more, but somehow the money charged is not “interest”.

  4. We have allowed to ourselves to get soft and decadent, and are thus unwilling to fight the Islamicists. Too many of us believe that they just want to live in peace. Can they be beaten. Yes. But we have to decide to do it and then carry through with the decision.

  5. I guess there are several reasons why western countries (and eastern ones, for all I know) cave in so often and easily to absurd Muslim cultural demands.

    1. the belief in multicuturalism
    2. fear of Muslim terrorism if they don’t give in.
    3. money–many EU countries, which are not very productive or competative anymore, need the oil money from the middle east recycled back to them.

    It’s actually quite depressing.

  6. While some of you talk about getting soft and round bottomed, and worried about rustlings in the dark, there are young men and women, all volunteers, who have signed up to defend your right to wring your hands in mewling defeatism while eating steak (if that’s what trips your trigger). My point is, don’t lose hope in our ability to defend ourselves against the “hordes.” There is a warrior class that comes from among us; they are kicking ass and taking names. I was honored to be one of them for 27 years and they will NOT let you down!

  7. a4g (and everyone else) —

    Based on my experience with the people I live among (in rural Virginia), the mujahideen will not win unless the rednecks run out of ammunition first.

  8. European and American situations are different.

    Europe is losing it because they no longer believe in the culture they must defend – and their culture is not Anglo-American self-reliance, but statism that, after a century of toying disastrously with various forms of centralized control, has left its citizens infantilized. People who can’t get it together (or give of themselvers) to reproduce themselves aren’t going to get it together/give of themselves to defend themselves – especially after they’ve been trained to think that others will care for them.

    In a certain very real sense, this is the final, most deadly fallout of the Holocaust.

    Americans are just distracted by ease, a heavily material culture, and endless media stimubation.

  9. To be fair –

    Every grocery store has rows of alcoholic beverages and plenty of pork products too. You don’t see Muslims picketing or firebombing the average grocery store.

  10. If by chance the Islamic radicals are ever stupid enough to show themselves on our Nations soil, there will be no shortage of reenforcements for our Military.

    If they are not already in uniform, they are well equiped and trained at this moment. My friends kids and grandkids and my own 3 grandsons, all own and know how to shoot well, a host of weapons.

    Well, except for my 4 3/4 y/o granddaughter, but her training cycle will begin on her 6th birthday.

    Depend on it.

    Papa Ray
    West Texas
    USA

  11. scylla —

    You’re quite right. But I was thinking more of Britain, where the “no pigs” rule is coming into effect more and more. It’s only a matter of time until supermarkets come under pressure. If not to remove the pork products, then at least to take down the advertising & keep the meat under cover.

    Just wait and see.

  12. Well said PhillipinePhil and I was not speaking of myself or many that I know, I was speaking of a large segment of our society that would rather be enslaved then fight. I dare them to invade Michigan as well — the Militia is still here, and the vast majority of them are veterans.

  13. Baron: Based on my experience with the people I live among (in rural Virginia), the mujahideen will not win unless the rednecks run out of ammunition first.
    Long live the Second Amendment!

    And not just rednecks have arms and ammunition. LOL.

  14. The problem with your argument is that Hindu extremism is a very real, very dangerous phenomenon that’s led to thousands of deaths, as well as maimings, rapes, and the wholesale destruction of property. Christians in India have been forced to convert at sword’s point, or murdered outright, and – contrary to what you imply – Muslims have indeed been targeted specifically for eating beef.

    Here’s a link to Human Rights Watch’s report on Hindu violence against Christians.

    And here’s a link to an article that discusses the role of the sacred cow in Hindu extremism: “The first movement for cow protection was initiated at the end of the nineteenth century and sought to unite all Hindus against the alleged barbaric practices of Muslims that threatened the natural order of Hindu society. The cow, believed sacred by many, has long been a symbol of upper-caste Hindu identity and is therefore invested with great potential for political manipulation. The permanent subtext of such campaigns is their anti-Muslim character: all Muslims are assumed to be beef-eaters, a permanent body of cow-slaughterers.”

    If you’re interested in learning more, you could try Googling “Hindu extremism.” There’s plenty of it to read about.

  15. Phila, Since you asked

    The simple fact is that Hindu extremism is a REACTION to Islamic behaviour. If we are such bad people how do you explain the trend of the population percentages?

    Most people in India identify themselves by their linguistic group (Tamil, Punjabi etc.) – just like in Europe (Italian, German etc.)
    The problem arises when Muslims enter your society and they identify themselves “solely” by their religion. This forces everyone else to bring out their “religious identity” out of their “backpocket”

    We have been battling Islam for 1000 years. Just wait and watch how your beloved Europeans turn out in just 50 years as present trends continue.

    Did you notice that in the Aussie riots the only people who could “protect” the ordinary citizens were the surf gang called “Bra boys”? Do you think this is just a one time strange coincidence. Notice the rise of such thuggish organizations in “civilised” Europe over the next few decades.

    The simple fact is that once you bring the religious genie out of the bottle the consequences are never going to be good. I could write lots more but I just noticed this comment and this thread is quite old-some other time.

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