Activist wonders if there will soon be a law to ban restaurants from serving pork altogether to "save fragile Muslim souls from ever being offended."
PETALING JAYA: The recent furore over “No Pork” signs displayed at restaurants, and considered by some Muslims as a ploy by unscrupulous owners to hoodwink them into thinking the food served was halal, was given the Marina Mahathir treatment in her latest blog entry.
“Some of us have become rather obsessive about the religious pristine-ness of our food and are perpetually on the lookout for whoever may next cause offence,” she wrote, pointing out that in India, vegetarians and non-vegetarians ate side by side in the same restaurant without the need to practise “culinary apartheid,” with only a menu to show them which dishes were vegetarian and which were not.
“Now unlike India where people speak English and understand that ‘no’ means ‘no’, in Malaysia, ‘no’ can mean ‘maybe got something else which someone insidiously put in because they want to taint us’,” Marina said, noting that Malaysians had their “antennae perpetually tuned to whoever may next cause offence, intentionally or otherwise.”
“It is a wonder how Muslims in Malaysia haven’t starved to death from food anxiety every day. What on earth do they do when they travel?” she asked.
She said despite restaurants with names that made it clear what kind of food was served inside, there appeared to be still “room for confusion” among Muslims.
She said she was also quite sure there would come a time when the country’s “ever-righteous leaders” would step in with a law to ban pork from being served “to save fragile Muslim souls from ever being offended” regardless of whether they would ever go into those restaurants or not.
“Never mind that there is a much higher likelihood of Muslims dying of diabetes from too much nasi lemak and fast food than from inhaling the smell of non-halal food,” she said, commenting on the belief that the bodies of Muslim’s must be presented in “pure form” on Judgement Day.
She said there were worse things than the presence of non-halal food in restaurants, such as being overweight from observing an unhealthy albeit halal diet and not exercising.
“Never mind also that the brains these bodies are attached to, are atrophying from lack of use.
“Never mind also that the hands attached to these bodies sometimes handle money that may not be righteously earned,” she said, adding that these seemed “irrelevant” compared to the need to perpetually be on guard “against all manner of insults and intent to injure.”
“Some of us have become rather obsessive about the religious pristine-ness of our food and are perpetually on the lookout for whoever may next cause offence,” she wrote, pointing out that in India, vegetarians and non-vegetarians ate side by side in the same restaurant without the need to practise “culinary apartheid,” with only a menu to show them which dishes were vegetarian and which were not.
“Now unlike India where people speak English and understand that ‘no’ means ‘no’, in Malaysia, ‘no’ can mean ‘maybe got something else which someone insidiously put in because they want to taint us’,” Marina said, noting that Malaysians had their “antennae perpetually tuned to whoever may next cause offence, intentionally or otherwise.”
“It is a wonder how Muslims in Malaysia haven’t starved to death from food anxiety every day. What on earth do they do when they travel?” she asked.
She said despite restaurants with names that made it clear what kind of food was served inside, there appeared to be still “room for confusion” among Muslims.
She said she was also quite sure there would come a time when the country’s “ever-righteous leaders” would step in with a law to ban pork from being served “to save fragile Muslim souls from ever being offended” regardless of whether they would ever go into those restaurants or not.
“Never mind that there is a much higher likelihood of Muslims dying of diabetes from too much nasi lemak and fast food than from inhaling the smell of non-halal food,” she said, commenting on the belief that the bodies of Muslim’s must be presented in “pure form” on Judgement Day.
She said there were worse things than the presence of non-halal food in restaurants, such as being overweight from observing an unhealthy albeit halal diet and not exercising.
“Never mind also that the brains these bodies are attached to, are atrophying from lack of use.
“Never mind also that the hands attached to these bodies sometimes handle money that may not be righteously earned,” she said, adding that these seemed “irrelevant” compared to the need to perpetually be on guard “against all manner of insults and intent to injure.”
-FMT NEWS-
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