KFC Eateries in England Dump Halal Menu Under Public Pressure

KFC “gets the message”… sure ain’t nuttin like reduced cash flow to make a merchant see the light, no? As Christians outnumber Muslims in the West…

Some Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) Express Café outlets in Britain dumped Halal menus after protests from the public. Last year, about a hundred of the 750 restaurants run by the fast food giant switched over exclusively to a Halal menu to attract Muslims. In response, thousands of diners throughout the country complained. In the town of Burnley in Lancashire, thousands of Facebook users formed a group, “No Halal Menu!” This forced the local KFC Express Café to revert to offering the traditional bill of fare. According to the newspaper The Daily Mail, another reason why the company decided to return to the traditional menu was reduced profits. In March of this year, French customers protested against the move by the Quick restaurant chain to a Halal menu. The Mayor of Roubaix (near the Belgian border) called for a boycott of the chain, and the city government filed a complaint in court. “I’m not worried about the fact that there’s a Halal menu. But it went too far, because it’s the only proposed menu, and that’s discrimination”, the mayor said. Some members of the conservative UMP political party and French President Nicolas Sarkozy condemned the move, and Jean-Marie Le Pen, the President of the Front National, warned of creeping Islamisation in France. In the same month, in another French city, Villeurbanne in Rhône Department in Eastern France (the second-largest city after Lyons), 70 people held an “Anti-Halal” rally wearing pig masks in one of the restaurants of the chain.

28 June 2010

Interfax-Religion

http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=36231

Editor’s Note:

It looks as though sanity is prevailing and ordinary folk have had enough of the Peesy-Weesy rubbish purveyed by pseudo-intellectuals and their political enablers. These people have nothing against individual Muslims… hell, they’d be amongst the first to see to it that a Halal option was on the menu. That’s only fair… we do it for those who keep Kosher, don’t we? What is being protested is something different… having Halal shoved down one’s throat as the only option. What I say to Muslims is simple… “If you don’t like pork, dogs, or crosses… go to Saudi Arabia, such things won’t bother you there. If you live in a Christian country, don’t be surprised that the people act like Christians and not like Muslims. We like it that way, dearies, and it’s not gonna change any time soon, no matter what any jackass judge or politician or ‘scholar’ says”. Many Muslims are here to make money… so be it. If a Muslim wants to live in an Islamic society, they can go to Iran or Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan… but they won’t make as much money. It’s a simple trade-off… if you want to make more money by living in a Christian society, accept the fact that the surrounding culture is Christian. If you want to live a pure Islamic life, well, move to one of the Islamic states, and accept the fact that you won’t make as much money. It’s quite that simple, no?

BMD

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March of the Christians of the Arabian Peninsula

Interior of St Joseph Church (RC), Abu Dhabi

Editor’s Foreword:

This is translated from the Russian, primarily, to show you what Russians are reading about the heterodox confessions. Relax… we don’t hate them, nor do we “go off” on them. We DO want friendly relations. That being said, neither we nor anyone else needs syncretistic indifference. I say that being good neighbours is “good enough”… anything else is looking for trouble.

BMD

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Filipinos, Ceylonese, Indians… two million followers of Jesus Christ on the Arabian Peninsula… the cradle of Islam

According to the weekly bulletin of the parish church of St Joseph in Abu Dhabi, which is located amongst skyscrapers and mosques in the United Arab Emirates, its daily routine reminds one of the UN in New York. Five priests of various nationalities offer services in different languages, English, Arabic, French, Tagalog, Malayalam, Urdu, Konkani, Tamil, Sinhalese, Malankara, and, sometimes, in Italian. The day with the greatest number of services is not Sunday, but Friday, the weekly day of rest in Arab countries. This is a pragmatic way to satisfy the needs of more than 100,000 believers, who belong to ninety different nationalities. Most of the parishioners of one of the largest Catholic parishes in the world are domestic servants and construction workers who are employed by local wealthy Muslims.

Such a scenario repeats itself in about twenty parishes in Dubai, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain, the epicentres of a phenomenon that is changing the face of the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf, and to some extent mirrors what is happening in Europe. [In Europe,] Old World churches stand half-empty, but Muslim immigrant communities build new mosques. In the Gulf, the recent economic boom attracted hundreds of thousands of Catholics, mostly from the Philippines, India, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan. “Their number is growing, despite the economic crisis, and it’s no exaggeration to say that two and a half million Catholics now live in the Arabian Peninsula”, Mgr Paul Hinder, who heads the Vicariate of the Holy See in Arabia. This is the largest religious district in the world, comprising 6 countries, with a total population of 60 million people, and a territory of more than 3 million square kilometres (@1.158 million square miles). The largest number of immigrants is not so much in the smaller Arab emirates in the Persian Gulf, but in the colossus of the region, Saudi Arabia, which is the most difficult interlocutor for the Catholic Church. In this country, where the Islamic holy places [are located], it is forbidden not only to build churches, but also to serve mass, despite a growing Christian population.

Official data is not available, but there was reliable information circulating at a conference in Lebanon organised by the International Foundation of Venice “Oasis” and devoted to [the relations between] Christians and Muslims. According to this data, there are about 1.5 million Filipinos in the Arabian Peninsula, and 85 percent are Catholics. In general, immigrants make up more than 8 million of the 27.5 million inhabitants of the peninsula, coming mainly from Southeast Asia and other Asian regions, amongst whom are many Christians. In a study by Giuseppe Caffulli published in the latest issue of Life and Thought, printed by the Catholic University of Sacred Heart, says that this phenomenon arose in the 90s, when Riyadh decided to block the issuance of entry visas to immigrants from Yemen, a neighbouring poor country. Until then, it was a traditional source of labour for the sheikhs. The rise of al-Qaeda, a Saudi-Yemeni organisation headed by Osama bin Laden, made Riyadh fear an explosion of Islamic “integralism” in the country, and forced them to close the door to immigrants from Yemen, opening it up to “safe” workers from the Philippines and Sri Lanka. This led to widespread immigration of Christians to the heartland of Islam, fourteen centuries after the appearance of Mohammed. Bishop Hinder, a Swiss cleric, who is a Capuchin, lives on the shores of the Persian Gulf, so he was cautious in his statements about Saudi Arabia. He contented himself with the following remark, “The climate is changing”. Other sources speak of almost imperceptible signs of greater tolerance, but always within a context where the religious police do not allow any public manifestations of faith, if one is not a Muslim.

To compare the “occupation” by Christians of the heartland of the Islamic world with the continuous inflow of Muslims into Christian Europe, according to Bishop Hinder, is valid only up to a certain extent. “There are too many differences, starting with the fact that we live in countries where [Islamic] “integralism” is both illegal and undesirable. A portion of the Muslim immigrants in Europe wishes to settle down and be naturalised. This does not happen in the Persian Gulf. People come here to work, and, then, move to other places. Recently, on a visit to Toronto, I met many people who moved to Canada after working in Qatar, Bahrain, and Dubai”, Rev Hinder explained. Another difference, according to the Catholics living in the Persian Gulf region, lies in the fact that Muslims in Europe have significant financial resources to build mosques. Suffice it to recall the Saudi money allocated for the construction of mosques in Bosnia. “If I get permission to build a church, I must resort to the generosity of the faithful. We have a great need for new churches, as the old ones no longer accommodate all the faithful”, Mgr Hinder said.

One of the goals of the international fund “Oasis” is to push for authentic and comprehensive education of both Christians and Muslims to rid them of both “absolute positivism” and “formal fundamentalism”… in pursuit of which some seventy delegates from around the world recently met in Beirut. Cardinal Angelo Scola, the Patriarch of Venice {one of the papabili in the last conclave: editor’s note}, and founder of “Oasis”, stressed the need, common to Christians and Muslims, to attend to the process of “meeting with freedom”.

28 June 2010

Marco Barbazizi

La Stampa (Torino)

As quoted in Interfax-Religion

http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=print&div=11541

Editor’s Afterword:

Do notice that HUGE silence? That’s what you get from the corporate media regarding the Christians in the Middle East. You DO hear of this or that minor Radical Proddie bunch in the PRC or Russia or of JWs getting their butts kicked in some country or another because of their bloody-minded activities. If the victims are Catholics or Orthodox… silence. If the victims are “no-church” Proddies… notice the loud wailing and lamentation. If Saudi Arabia is financing mosques, then, the Western countries should subsidise the building of churches in the Gulf… fair, no? It won’t happen… mainly, because secularists in the USA are anti-religious, and so-called “conservatives” are in the pockets of the “Evangelicals”, which amounts to the same thing (this is not the time or place for a discussion of the Christian Atheism of the “Evangelical”, interesting as it would be).

Isn’t it rich, though? The Saudis had to stop Yemenis coming in because of their politics… and they had to let in Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists to replace them. This has implications for the future. Stay tuned, same bat time, sane bat station…

BMD

Ten World Capitals of Smut

The Tower of Babel

Fr Vladislav Provotorov

1989

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This is the end of the Libertine… and the Purtian, too!

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Here’s a list of the ten most debauched cities in the history of civilisation:

Babylon
2nd millennium BC

Babylon’s considered the birthplace of prostitution; it wasn’t in vain that the image of the “Whore of Babylon” persisted for centuries. Herodotus described the local customs thusly, “In Babylon, there was a temple of Millity (Aphrodite). Once in her lifetime, each Babylonian woman was required to surrender herself in this temple… the fee could be ridiculously small. Ritual prostitution later spread to all ancient civilisations.

Sodom and Gomorrah
2nd millennium BC

The names of these cities, which God destroyed because of their sins, became a symbol of debauchery and sexual perversion. In addition, the Old Testament contains a reference to the name of the first recorded “commercial” prostitute… Ruth (or Rahab) from the city of Jericho. She was famous for having hid two spies from the army of Joshua in her house, so her home was spared during the destruction of the city.

Rome
1st Century AD

To learn the appearance of a Roman brothel, or “lupanar”, one need only look at the ruins of Pompeii… they were huge buildings with many rooms. When even the daughters of senators began to engage in prostitution, Tiberius forbade female patricians to take money for sex. It didn’t help, and, soon, the wife of Emperor Claudius, Messalina, serviced men in a brothel.

Bordeaux
11th Century AD

Bordeaux, the capital of Aquitaine, was the merriest place to party during the Middle Ages. Count Guillaume VII was known as “the First Partier and Troubadour”. Pierre Daninos wrote that he built a special “convent” for prostitutes, with a hierarchy resembling that of conventional convents of that era. Not surprisingly, Aquitaine soon succumbed to Amor; it became the setting for a new heretical sect, the Cathars, who preached free love.

Venice
17th Century AD

Venice was the birthplace of the European Carnival, during which nothing seemed too shameful, too daring, too reckless, or too lewd. Once, one of the Doges complained that the wearing of Carnival masks turned the city into nothing but one huge brothel. Giacomo Girolamo Casanova was born in Venice, a man whose name was synonymous with debauchery.

Calcutta
19th Century AD

During the British Victorian era, the capital of British India, “The city of the goddess Kali”, was one huge brothel, where there were no forbidden desires. The officers were particularly fond of the Bayadères, who were prostitute-dancers. Indeed, the Brits popularised the ancient sex manual Vatsyayana Kama Sutra all over Europe.

Rio de Janeiro
The beginning of the 20th Century AD

White trousers, cheap drinks, and hot beaches, where cocaine was as available as the women were. World Wars and revolutions raged in the Old World, but a Golden Age of hedonism reigned in Rio de Janeiro… all the millionaires and Hollywood stars flocked here. Today, the memories of the former splendours of Rio live on in the Carnaval, which attracts transvestites from all over the world.

Moscow
1980s-90s AD

Signs of the times… the song, “Confused, muddled, and confused… a night moth, well, who’s to blame…”… there were “moths” under the streetlights on Tverskaya Street. Moscow gloried in its reputation as the most desirable and least expensive destination for sex tourists. A 1989 survey amongst Soviet high school students showed that every other schoolgirl dreamed of a career as a prostitute working for foreign currency. Today, Moscow’s lustre as a sexual mecca has faded.

Amsterdam
The end of the 20th Century AD

In the Netherlands, as early as the 18th century, a philosophy of “libertinism” arose, according to which, a free man shouldn’t be bound by conventional moral social norms. Therefore, should it surprise you that Amsterdam was the cradle of the European sexual revolution of the twentieth century? After all, the first legalised soft drugs, prostitution, and same-sex marriages were first seen here.

Bangkok
21st Century AD

The capital of Thailand‘s a modern mecca of sexual tourism. There’s the widest choice of services and partners… there are boys and girls of all ages, girls remodelled into boys, and boys who are not yet completely remodelled into girls. In addition, as they say, there are the so-called “sex-robots”… not without reason, the Thai capital’s called a “Disneyland for adults”. Today, according to the UN, there are about a million prostitutes in Bangkok.

28 June 2010

Vladimir Tikhomirov

Огонек (Little Flame)

As quoted in Interfax-Religion

http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=print&div=11540

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A Boyar Wedding Feast in the 17th Century

Konstantin Makovsky

1883

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Editor’s Note:

One of the dumbest things that one hears is “Holy Russia” or “Holy Greece” (or “Holy Anyplace Else” in the Orthodox world). Trust me, if you’re “looking for a good time” or if you want to “party hearty”… you can find it easily enough in Russia or Greece, and without much effort either. If you want to “Come to the Kama Sutra” in Moscow, Athens, Sofia, Belgrade, or Bucharest, it can be arranged, and the fee won’t break the bank. In fact, that’s the way it’s always been… there has NEVER been a “Holy Golden Age” anywhere, at any time, or amongst any one people. Trust me… there were “painted ladies” in New Rome… they knew how to party in Old Russia (look at Makovsky’s painting A Boyar Wedding Feast in the 17th Century, you’ll know what I mean)…

The Holy’s always coexisted with the Profane… and the tension between the two has been creative, for both individuals and societies. There are two extremes to avoid… the prunish, tight-arsed, and smarmy Puritan… and the smiling, over-tolerant, and “understanding” Libertine. Am I the only person to notice that the konvertsy embody all the worst traits of both, but with none of either’s redeeming qualities? Perspiring minds wanna know…

BMD

EU Leaves Banning of the Burqa to Member States

Anna Cecilia Malmström (1968- ), the European Commissioner for Home Affairs and Justice

The EU is not going to ban the wearing of the burqa at the federal level; it will leave the matter to the discretion of its member states. “I don’t see the need for a European law on the burqa”, Anna Cecilia Malmström, the European Commissioner for Home Affairs and Justice, said at a press conference in Brussels. The Chamber of Representatives of the Belgian Parliament adopted a law that prohibits appearing in public with the face covered in April, and it is awaiting approval in the Senate. In July, a similar bill will be presented in the French Assemblée Nationale. In Spain, too, the Socialist government is preparing legislation on “Freedom of Religion”, which prohibits the wearing of the burqa in public places. A year ago, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that the burqa is frowned upon in France, as it is a symbol of the subordination of women.

29 June 2010

Interfax-Religion

http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=36234