A recent article republished by the Good Oil clutched its pearls mightily about the campaign to outlaw halal slaughter in the UK. While the article’s headline claim was that banning halal slaughter could be co-opted by campaigns to ban hunting in the UK, much of it was actually taken up by standard normiecon handwringing that Reform is raaaaycist.
“A cynic might believe the anti-halal campaign is in fact a clever ruse to deter uncompromising Muslims from coming to the UK,” Damien McCrystal claimed. Well, OK: so what? Presumably by “uncompromising Muslims”, he means ‘fundamentalists’. Given that British authorities currently tally jihadis in Britain in the tens of thousands, deterring such “uncompromising Muslims” sounds like a pretty good idea.
Then there’s the problem that the statement from Reform’s Rupert Lowe which McCrystal used to justify this claim said nothing at all about Muslims.
Lowe, MP for the impoverished Norfolk constituency of Great Yarmouth, is also in favour of chucking all illegal immigrants out of the UK. In April this year, he co-sponsored an Early Day Motion in Parliament headed “Mass Deportation of illegal immigrants”, which expressed “grave concern at the continued presence of over one million illegal migrants in the United Kingdom” and called for “the government to implement a comprehensive national strategy to identify, detain, and deport all individuals found to be residing in the United Kingdom illegally”.
Is McCrystal arguing that all Muslims are illegal immigrants? Or that there is anything actually wrong with deporting anyone and everyone who’s in the country illegally?
Ah, but raaaycism!
It is easy to suppose that a great many people who are disturbed by the economic and cultural effects of mass migration, from predominantly Muslim countries, might see it as a great deterrent. And a wonderful way to look pro-animal rather than racist.
As always with such self-righteous posturing, the key question here is: What race is Muslim? If he thinks all Muslims are ‘brown’, it seems very much that the racism problem is a lot closer to home than he likes.
Let’s look at McCrystal’s claim, though:
The bigger problem I foresee, though, is that such a law could easily be co-opted to support the endless campaigns against shooting game in the UK. This matter was by no means settled by the recent vote by MPs against a ban on grouse shooting. That was not primarily about cruelty but about conservation.
OK, so he’s drawing apples-and-oranges comparisons. Still, it is indeed conceivable – likely, even – that mendacious animal activists will try and weaponise anti-halal campaigns to their own cause.
Rupert Lowe’s campaign against halal slaughter, if successful, could open a door to laws which ultimately change the countryside every bit as much as mass migration has changed so many of our inner cities. A ban on shooting would be an attack on communities and jobs in rural areas where shooting has been a way of life for well over 150 years.
And I see no reason why the campaigners would restrict it to game birds. Deer stalking occasionally results in woundings – a situation which all stalkers seek to rectify immediately, but there is undoubtedly suffering by the animal for a time.
It is perhaps worse with fishing, particularly the type known as angling.
Did McCrystal draw similar connections between bans on fox-hunting? Just curious.
But, should activists try it on, is there really any equivalence between recreational hunting and fishing and halal slaughter?
Like many countries, the UK imposes a license fee for hunting and fishing. Also like many countries, the money is (supposed to be) used for conservation programmes to maintain fisheries and wildlife.
Fees are imposed for halal certification, too – but there the similarities end. What the money raised from halal certification – which is a lot – is used for is cloaked in secrecy.
We’re not talking pittances: globally, the halal food industry was valued in 2012 at between $US600 billion and $US2.1 trillion. Without doubt, it’s much higher today. In Australia alone, there are dozens of halal certifiers, charging thousands to tens of thousands per year for each certification. How many businesses pay for this certification is unknown.
The cloud of secrecy doesn’t stop there.
None of the companies or organisations that certify halal meat in Australia are public companies, so they are not required to publicly report what they earn from halal certification. Most are exempt from taxation on religious grounds. The few public admissions, though, suggest that halal certification is raising millions of unaccounted-for money.
One big money-raker from halal certification is the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC). This was a group previously funded by the Gaddafi regime in Libya. Its former leader, Sheikh Taj El-Din Hilaly, was a notorious anti-Semite, homophobe and jihad promoter. Another leader, Keysar Trad, notoriously defended wife-beating as an Islamic practice. Trad also refused to publicly condemn Hezbollah, while promoting polygamy and sharia courts.
When Britain’s deer stalkers and anglers are funding terrorism and religious extremism get back to me.
