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| Delicious bacon sandwich. Please do not eat if it is proscribed by your religion. But leave my bacon sandwich alone. Thank you. (Wiki commons photo) |
About a month ago, we decided to eat in
a Moroccan restaurant in Exeter. It was very much Moroccan-owned and
Moroccan-staffed. Mainly, the clientele appeared to be regular old
Brits.
Until recently, I would have thought
nothing of dining in a Middle Eastern restaurant, nothing at all. One
of my favorite restaurants in New York was a Turkish restaurant, and
there were a few other Middle Eastern restaurants in NYC I really
liked.
But that day, I was sort of put off.
The staff was polite and friendly, like any UK restaurant staff. But
I realized I was just not relaxed. As if I were being judged for my
summer clothes...that sort of thing. I decided to avoid Middle
Eastern restaurants in future. Not that I think every person from the
Middle East or who had ancestors there is a terrorist.
BUT...one never knows. A regular
British person of Middle Eastern heritage apparently committed one of
the most heinous acts of terrorism in recent history.
I don't want to punish innocent Muslims
for that. On the other hand, we seem to have gone way too far in our
attempts to be egalitarian and accepting. That works if the people
with whom one is dealing are like-minded. For example, the French
handle their cutlery differently while eating; so what? They don't
demand that Brits knife-switch (as the French and Americans do), and
Brits (generally speaking) do not refuse to share a meal with French
people or Americans.
The French also love organ meat;
generally speaking, Brits and Yanks don't. Neither forces their views
of organ meat on the other; neither would demand a restaurateur
refrain from advertising his/her meals designed around organ meats to
attract those customers as well as those who like plain old chicken
that's also on the menu.
And yet, in Winooski, VT, a college
town, a Muslim woman demanded that a restaurant owner remove a sign about bacon because it offended her. Muslims don't eat pork; neither
do observant Jews. It was not, please note, a Jewish resident who was
offended by a Christian's logical advertising of the pork product
that they served. Jews do not expect the world to revolve around
them...generally speaking. Christians don't either, unless they are
named Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter.
But Muslims, it appears—despite their
mandate to kill all infidels, that is, you and me—are very
thin-skinned, unable to even tolerate the word signifying something
they do not eat.
On the other hand, they are, in their
home nations, impervious to western culture and imperious about
keeping any vestige of it out of their nations.
Would any of us dare to go around in
shorts and a halter top in, for instance, Afghanistan?
Would we ask a Muslim man in Yemen to
get a cinder out of our eye? Would a Muslim man in Syria have a
friendly conversation with a woman who was not his wife, mother or
sister?
Much of the Muslim world completely rejects
western cultural norms. And yet, when Muslims arrive in the west, some of them have no problem demanding we honour theirs, not only respect
theirs, but actually alter our own way of life to accommodate them.
That is, if nothing else, arrogance in
the extreme.
One could say, in fact, that beheading
people is arrogance in the extreme. Famous beheaders include Henry
VIII, a syphilitic excuse for a ruler with about as much humility as
George W. Bush. Bush, recall, masterminded water boarding. OK, that's
not beheading. But in a western society, I would contend that it is
as close as one can get without going over the line.
In western thought, there is no room
for arrogance in the same place as spirituality. Indeed, humility,
service and acceptance are keywords in all western religions...and
even more so in far eastern religions.
In the Middle East, it all falls apart. While the actual words of the Quran are not vicious, there have been sects over the years who interpreted the words of that prophet in ways never intended. Not unlike the Christian zealots who would burn a woman instead of allow her to end an early-term pregnancy that would take her life as well as the baby's if the pregnancy were completed
Still, if the few ferocious sects of Islam want to be that way in their own country, it's fine with me, and with most westerners I should think. I'll just choose to stay away. Should I happen to go there, I would be careful to follow their customs so I wouldn't get my throat cut. Probably. The rule of law as understood in the west is not operative in all parts of the Middle East, particularly those that have suffered incursions by westerners who want to remake them in a western style.
But live and let live isn't fine when Middle Eastern
zealots arrive in Judeo-Christian nations with an axe to grind. Mind you, they might well have a reason for that attitude, but it is still divisive just as much as are actions of Judeo-Christians who deride Muslims. We are not required to accommodate cultural norms at odds with our own; we can respectfully decline to alter our beliefs for them--as they can respectfully decline to alter their beliefs for ours.
The restaurant owner was not trying to offend anyone. He was just trying to attract business. No one said the complainant had to eat there; it was not the last outpost of sustenance in the known world.
Taking offense at what someone else
does in all innocence that harms no one is, in fact, arrogant. It is
proclaiming that your concept of how the world should be is more
important than theirs, and you will do whatever it takes—whining,
complaining, beheading—to ensure that everyone....EVERYONE...
knows just exactly how offended you are.
It is so unnecessary. The fact of kosher slaughter offends me. Halal foods offend me.
Oh, wait. No they don't. They are the customs of populations of which I am not a part. They are welcome to do things their own wayk, even in what I could call MY country, as long as they don't ry to imost them on me, nor try to prevent my doing as I believe is right under the norms of my country.
