Britain Under Attack!

My article that appeared in News24, May 03, 2014.
http://voices.news24.com/fareed-kaloo/2014/05/britain-attack/

This week saw British folk in uproar as their values and culture came under attack, not by an invading army or marauding pirates, not even by suicide bombers or nuclear threats.

The enemy as you may already have feared, is the humble kebab!

So serious is the threat that patriotic British defenders of culture and all things wet and gloomy have garnered over 40000 petitions on their website http://www.britainfirst.org/boycott-subway/ . As the website name suggests, these brave and clearly hungry for ham Soldiers Of Sandwiches will stop at nothing to defend the honour and pride of the humble pork. The fact that the enemy in this war, the Subway sandwich franchise, has 200 ham-free stores in predominantly Muslim regions out of their total 1500 stores nationwide seems worthy of a Fatwa against Subway.

Why should decent hard-working ham-loving British men, women and children be deprived of their ham sandwich simply because the demographic of the neighbourhood they live in prefers their meat halaal? What is wrong with food giants who spend millions on research and development and product marketting that they have missed completely the barbarity of the halaal slaughtering process? Are local companies like Woolworths and Checkers and Pick n’ Pay hoodwinked into believing that the rigorous process all meat has to go through before being  declared halaal is actually very stringent in standards and quality? Do they not realise the sham that is actually totally barbaric? Surely someone should point out to them that other types of meat which doesnt include animal slaughter (presumably the type where chicken and beef are planted as seeds, watered and harvested in a humane manner) would serve the consumer and their armchair-humanitarian beliefs better.

As a consumer, driving through a predominantly Muslim neighbourhood such as Laudium, or Azaadville, or Roshnee, I should totally expect to find stores catering to pork and ham lovers. After all, everybody knows that business folk are a rather stupid bunch who never do basic concepts like Feasibility Studies or Demographic Research. Thats the very reason why the number 1 Kelvinator freezer store is in Alaska. Eskimo’s desire a good freezer as much as your average muslim family desire a good pork roast on a Sunday.
With all the worthy causes to be fighting and championing throughout the world… poverty, sickness, wars and famine, do these British folk honestly believe that driving a further 10 miles to a store that does serve ham is so great an effort that it requires national and international protest? Really people?

I will defend the right of any man, woman or child to enjoy his or her ham sandwich.
If the store of his choice does not serve ham for whatever reason, I wil defend his right to drive to a store which does.