Hungry for Allah

The following report from the Radio Maudin channel in France features the account of a young woman who had just given birth in a public hospital, and was denied a full meal by the nursing assistant who brought her food. The reason? The nursing assistant was a Muslim, and the young mother was of Tunisian descent. Therefore the halal restrictions had to be applied to the new mother. She was hungry for her ham and mashed potatoes, but she was not allowed to have them.

By the way — the story recounted in this video took place twenty years ago, and conditions in France have obviously worsened considerably in the interim. The little baby girl who was born in that hospital all those years ago is now perhaps a university student, and is old enough to be gang-raped by “youths” on public transportation.

Just sayin’…

Many thanks to HeHa for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling:

Video transcript:

00:00   And welcome to Radio Maudin! Today, a new testimony,
00:03   with a beautiful demonstration of tolerance from the religion of peace and love.
00:08   When you hear this little story, many will respond in unison, as usual,
00:12   specifically: if it had been the other way around, it would have been a national drama.
00:17   And yes, that’s how it happens, all the time. So I won’t reveal
00:21   more details about the story in question. Just keep in mind that it took place in a public hospital
00:25   and that the victim was encouraged not to make too much noise about the case, to avoid scandal.
00:31   But unfortunately for them, a friend of hers decided to talk about it on Radio Maudin.
00:34   In any case, it is still a good proof of ghettoization and essentialism,
00:38   which the Arab-Muslim community often gives evidence of.
00:41   So don’t hesitate to put a little like to help the video rankings.
00:45   And if you also want to be a part of Radio Maudin, tell us something you have seen or experienced.
00:50   You just need to send me an email via the address in the description.
00:58   I wanted to witness to an event that happened to a couple of friends, whom we will call
01:04   Jean and Nadia. So for many years, I have been married to my husband, who is now retired
01:10   from the private sector. And for about thirty years he had worked in a small family business
01:16   in the south of France, which is our region of origin.
01:19   And now we have left the south, a few years ago.
01:23   In this business, my husband befriended a colleague, with whom he got along very well.
01:29   And he still gets along very well with him, even if he doesn’t work anymore.
01:33   And so we will call this gentleman Jean.
01:36   And like any friendship that takes importance in a person’s life,
01:40   Jean and his wife Nadia became good friends of ours over time.
01:45   And they started coming to our house regularly,
01:48   and to reciprocate, we were also often invited to theirs.
01:51   We used to have dinner together, go to several utilities;
01:55   we used to go shopping together, go hiking together,
01:58   go to restaurants together, go to the movies, to concerts, etc.
02:01   All that made us enjoy sharing moments that we lived together as friends.
02:05   They are very good long-time friends. So what I’m going to tell you
02:08   is not from a friend of a friend of a friend,
02:11   of the neighbor, my uncle, my aunt, of the neighbor who told me.
02:15   They have been intimate friends for many years.
02:18   So you may have understood it: Jean is of French origin.
02:21   And Nadia is French too, but of Tunisian origin.
02:24   She is a completely assimilated person, who was born in France.
02:28   She is a little older than me, she is about fifty years old too, but she is a little older than me.
02:33   She is absolutely a non-believer and a non-practitioner of any religion whatsoever.
02:36   Her husband also, he is completely an atheist.
02:40   My husband too, and I would say that in the quartet,
02:43   it is I who am, let’s say, a Christian, a believer, of Italian origin, but a non-practitioner.
02:48   But, that’s not the subject, because between us it has never been a topic of discussion.
02:52   So I would like to clarify that Jean and Nadia met at their workplace,
02:56   in the company where my husband and he have worked for a long time.
03:01   Nadia came in as a substitute, as a temporary secretary.
03:04   So she stayed several months in this company.
03:07   And so there was some sort of love at first sight with Jean,
03:10   a classic. And they got together quite quickly.
03:13   So, like in any love story that starts pretty well,
03:18   the months go by, the years go by, we are at the beginning of the 2000s,
03:22   and Nadia gets pregnant with her first child, a little girl.
03:25   So during the pregnancy everything is going well, everyone is happy, they rejoice;
03:29   they kind of feel the excitement and sense of celebration around this very much awaited baby.
03:33   And then comes the day of delivery, when Nadia gives birth to a little girl
03:36   at the maternity unit of the public hospital, of the city where we lived at the time,
03:42   which is an average city located about twenty kilometers away from Marseille,
03:46   a city of 60,000 inhabitants, where we were quite fine.
03:50   It was more than twenty years ago; it has changed a lot.
03:53   And you will see why it is not trivial when I specify that it is a public hospital.
03:58   So the delivery went well, it was a normal delivery, without any particular complications,
04:02   despite the fact that it was her first baby, so it was pretty long.
04:06   So between the moment when she felt the first contractions
04:11   and the moment of delivery, more than fifteen hours passed.
04:15   So it was a normal delivery, without complications, but quite long.
04:19   So Nadia had come home the day before, a little before 8 pm, with Jean, her husband,
04:24   who accompanied her. And the latter phoned us to tell us that she had contractions,
04:29   she was going to give birth, everything was fine, she was taken care of,
04:32   “I will give you news fairly quickly when I have some.”
04:35   So we were happy, we moved on to something else. And then we received no news.
04:39   And then, the next morning, while going to work, my husband found Jean, who had come to work,
04:43   waiting to go see his wife and daughter at the hospital.
04:46   And he had no more news than that, but he was not too worried.
04:49   And my husband and I had the intention of going there too,
04:52   but the following day, to see mom and baby. Which is what we did, 24 hours later.
04:57   Everything went well, and during the day we went there,
05:00   Nadia tells us a mind-boggling story,
05:05   which makes no sense. Which is the following, and which I’m going to tell.
05:08   So after the delivery, she went back to her room at around 2 pm.
05:13   And at that moment, at about the same time, a caregiver arrives with a meal cart, of course.
05:19   And so she knocks on her door, and asks her whether she is not too tired,
05:22   whether she feels like eating, or if she prefers to wait and rest.
05:26   And so my girlfriend Nadia replied to her: no, no, no,
05:29   that she was delighted to have something to eat, because she hadn’t eaten anything
05:32   since the afternoon of the day before, that she was hungry, that she needed to regain strength,
05:35   and so on. And so at that moment, while she was putting down the tray,
05:39   the caregiver tells her, “Listen, I’m sorry, it’s not possible,
05:43   because it’s mashed potatoes and ham, and I was not instructed to serve a halal meal to you,
05:48   and there isn’t any of that, any left in the kitchen.”
05:52   So my friend without being formal, told her:
05:55   “Listen, it’s really not a big deal, give me mashed potatoes and ham anyway.
05:58   I eat pork, I was born here, I have been eating pork since I was a child,
06:03   it does not matter to me, and I’m very hungry, thank you very much, goodbye.”
06:08   But it did not go that way, the caregiver didn’t like that at all,
06:12   and she refused to put down her tray.
06:15   And she told her: “Listen, there is yogurt, a little bit of cheese,”
06:19   and I think there was some fruit and a sort of appetizer made up of salad,
06:23   grated carrots, something like that. And then she told her: “I’ll put it there for you,
06:27   and then you will eat it better tonight or tomorrow,” basically, that’s it.
06:31   And my friend is completely astonished, and tells her:
06:34   “No, no, no, give me my full meal, please; I’m hungry.
06:37   It’s out of question that I don’t have my own meal.” And at that moment,
06:40   the caregiver tells her: “Change your tone.”
06:44   She sounds like a little more aggressive and says to her: “But how is it possible?
06:47   We are the same, you and me.” And then, she starts to address her as tu [i.e. speak informally],
06:51   so she puts all her professionalism aside,
06:54   and starts to address her as tu, telling her:
06:57   “Come on, you are Algerian, you are Moroccan, you are Tunisian, whatever you are,
07:01   we are the same, you and me, how can you eat pork?
07:04   It’s not possible, how dare you be such a woman? It’s unacceptable.”
07:08   And she ends with this chilling sentence,
07:11   “You’d better get back on the right track, my dear.”
07:14   My friend was completely astonished by what she heard,
07:17   and started to raise her voice too, and decided not to get bossed around, despite the fact
07:22   that she still was a little bit exhausted after 15 hours of delivery,
07:25   she was a little bit shaken up at an emotional level,
07:28   because she had just given birth to her first baby.
07:31   And then she didn’t succeed in making the caregiver see reason,
07:34   who was insisting, wasn’t willing to give in. It’s appalling, you can see it very well;
07:39   the caregiver didn’t want to give her meal to her.
07:42   Exhausted, and then a little bit emotional,
07:46   and very tired, Nadia gives up,
07:49   and she takes her yogurt, her little salad,
07:52   and then her pear, and then lets the caregiver go,
07:56   who leaves with her dish of mashed potatoes and ham.
07:59   So, let’s not be afraid of using words:
08:02   this caregiver took advantage of the momentary weakness of my friend,
08:06   to do what she wanted to do, what she had decided to do,
08:11   putting her professionalism completely aside.
08:14   So, she told us on the next day, 24 hours later,
08:19   and that had happened the day before.
08:22   So she had obviously told her husband
08:25   the day before, in the evening, after he had got off work.
08:28   Obviously, this made him mad, and he decided not to let it go.
08:33   He told her, “Listen, it’s just not possible, something like that.”
08:36   So he decides to go to the nurses’ office, to make a little fuss anyway,
08:39   to tell them what had happened. So the nurses welcome him,
08:43   they are totally, completely stunned,
08:46   and besides that, they don’t believe a word of what he’s saying.
08:49   So Jean asks to see either the head of the unit or at least a person in charge.
08:54   And obviously, he is told that no one can come,
08:57   or that that person is busy, etc. In the end, no one came to see him,
09:02   nor could he go to see someone in charge, to tell them about this incident.
09:07   So, we are at the beginning of the 2000s,
09:10   so it’s a little over 20 years now.
09:13   And well, the conditions in public services,
09:16   in general, we will say, not only in hospitals, were starting to deteriorate.
09:20   It was the beginning of the end, as they say. And so Jean started to get very aggressive,
09:23   and warned nurses and caregivers,
09:26   that if that woman behaved like that again, with his wife or with whoever,
09:31   he wouldn’t let it go. And he would report this incident to the hierarchy,
09:37   in a less sympathetic way, let’s say.
09:40   So, after that, the nurses advised him to calm down, not to make a fuss,
09:44   that he was in a hospital, that there were fragile people,
09:47   that that was neither the place nor the time to make a scene.
09:52   And in fact, to calm him down, they promised him to report this incident,
09:56   this story directly to their superiors.
09:59   Obviously, our two friends never knew
10:02   whether it had been done, since three days later Nadia left the maternity unit
10:06   with her daughter. In any case, she no longer had to deal with that caregiver,
10:10   in the two days that followed, because she stayed for about three days,
10:14   and she no longer had to deal with that caregiver during meals, because there was another person
10:17   who came to bring her the meals. So that was already a good thing.
10:20   However, what happened is that the entire nursing team of the maternity unit
10:26   asked Nadia and Jean not to make a fuss about the incident,
10:29   because it was something exceptional, insignificant, and there was no reason
10:33   to make a whole drama about it. Roughly speaking, they advised them
10:37   not to make a big deal about it, to be silent, especially,
10:41   and then, as usual, to move on. “Nothing to see here”, we are used to that.
10:45   Today, every time we talk about it, and look at everything that is happening in the world,
10:48   not just in France, well, it’s happening in the commentaries,
10:51   I would say we don’t joke about it at all. And looking back,
10:55   our friends regret not having made this story come out, by writing a letter
10:59   to the competent authorities at the time.
11:03   I think these kinds of events are not rare nowadays. They are a little more common, however,
11:09   than twenty years ago, I think. It deals with incidents that could happen back then,
11:15   but were less common than today. So I think that many people have similar stories to tell nowadays.
11:19   We all know someone to whom something like that has happened, I think.
11:24   It shocked us because it happened in a public hospital, in a public facility,
11:29   with a caregiver who is supposed to put aside her convictions to be able to do her job properly.
11:37   What does this story tell us? It tells us that this caregiver
11:40   completely put aside her professionalism
11:43   to highlight an aspect of her personality, of her convictions, that she considered, at that time,
11:49   to be more important than the well-being of a young mother who had just given birth.
11:53   And in addition, what is shocking is that she considered, de facto and a priori,
11:59   that Nadia was necessarily in agreement with her, since my friend
12:03   is of Maghrebi origin, like her. Whom she considered, a priori,
12:09   as a person who did not eat pork, to her mind.
12:13   There are several shocking things in this story, besides the fact
12:17   that this person put aside her professional duties. It is despite the fact
12:21   that my friend tried to talk to this woman, because the audio format did not allow me to go too far
12:27   in my explanation. My friend Nadia was outright forced to beg for her meal for several minutes.
12:34   I’ll spare you the details. And this caregiver absolutely did not give an inch.
12:39   That is to say, she had a cause, and that’s what’s terrible about this story.
12:43   I would conclude by saying that ideology, indoctrination, whether they are religious or not,
12:51   and therefore at bottom sectarian, can lead to this sort of aberration,
12:55   and can push a person to no longer have the ability to discern
13:01   in the exercise of her professional duty, and in her everyday life.
13:07   Indoctrination can eradicate a person’s ability to discern, to the extent
13:13   of becoming ridiculous, or even inhuman, since she didn’t take
13:17   the health of a young mother, who had just given birth, into account.
13:21   Thank you, Maudin Malin for giving me the floor and the audience for listening.
13:25   I am sure that there are many others who can tell similar unfortunate anecdotes today,
13:29   looking back twenty years ago.
13:33   Thank you very much, goodbye.
 

3 thoughts on “Hungry for Allah

  1. “By the way — the story recounted in this video took place twenty years ago, and conditions in France have obviously worsened considerably in the interim. The little baby girl who was born in that hospital all those years ago is now perhaps a university student, and is old enough to be gang-raped by “youths” on public transportation.
    Just sayin’…”

    And that university student’ll blame her mother. Just sayin’..

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