Lions and Tigers and BOARS, oh my!! Muslims vs Chinese Year of the Pig

Happy New Year! Chinese, that is.

Considered to be the most important of all traditional holidays in China, the Chinese New Year (aka Lunar New Year) is celebrated worldwide in most every city with a substantial Chinese community.

Today happens to mark the beginning of the very auspicious Year of the Pig (aka Boar). Returning after a 12 year hiatus, the pig, a symbol of good luck, is believed to bring prosperity and good fortune to all; that is, all but our Muslim friends who find piggies abhorrent. So, in deference to those feelings of ill will towards the poor, oft maligned porker, the Chinese government mandated all things piggish to be banned from the upcoming festivities. As a result, the major state-run TV network, China Central Television (CCTV), ordered a ban on all ads containing any references, whatsoever, to pigs, and so the star of the show has ended up on the proverbial 'cutting room floor'. Ad agencies scrambled , last minute, to comply. Quite a costly endeavour, considering most of the commercials were already in the can. One such ad, that was scrapped (from Nestle SA), featured a smiling cartoon pig along with the message "Happy new pig year". Harmless enough, one would think, but not so.

And major bad luck for companies like Tenlow. Try coming up with something non-porkish for a company that manufactures pork snacks. Brand manager Wu Ying claims her company's ads are positive and that the pig's "....plumpness means prosperity." But tough luck, so it seems. The Chinese government claims the ban was implemented "to avoid conflicts with ethnic minorities." They wanted to make sure they did not offend Islamic sensibilities, given their porcine aversion. In other words, they don't want to ruffle the feathers of the 20 million or so Muslims living in China.

It's all very nice, the Chinese government's attempts to project an image of tolerance, but since when have they ever concerned themselves with the protection of religious and ethnic minorities and their inherent rights? I'm not so sure the Falun Gong would agree with that statement. And what about the Buddhists in Tibet? And are they really being sensitive to the feelings of a religious minority? Or running scared, like the rest of the world, what with an Islamist population of 2% scattered throughout their land, and no idea how they might react to what could and would be considered a personal, religious affront. However, I think the word 'conflict" is key. Muslims in communities throughout the world have shown us, in no uncertain terms, what little it takes to set them off , how easily they are offended, and by things they have no right to be offended by. The ensuing violence is something most countries are trying to avoid, so they placate them through appeasement. What's the Year of the Pig without some pigs? Occasionally you find some courageous ones who refuse to kowtow to such insanity. The imam of the Taipei Grand Mosque lodged a formal complaint with Taiwan's foreign minister after receiving from him a Chinese New Year greeting card showing four pigs. Thankfully, the Taiwanese Foreign Ministry defended the Minister's right to send the card, citing cultural not religious tradition.

Now to be fair, pigs are pigs and there are some very sound health reasons why it's best to avoid pork. And Islam is not the only religion that forbids it. Judaism also considers pork to be unclean. There are references to that in both the Bible and the Koran, but the fundamental difference between the Jews and the Muslims, is that the Jews are not offended by mere images of pigs. Owning a Piggy Bank or watching "Babe" on TV is not verboten. Being called a "pig", though not pleasant, would not throw them into paroxysms of rage. And interestingly enough, according to Omar Ahmad (director of the American Muslim Outreach and Educational Group in the Bay Area), although the eating of pork is considered taboo, nothing in the Koran actually prohibits the displaying of pigs. He also commented that "When governments make a decision about what Muslims want and don't talk to Muslims, they come up with something completely ridiculous, and here's what we've got." That's nice to know, however, many Muslims have made it perfectly clear they find images of pigs offensive, and in China many said they were very happy with the ban.

The problem with continuing on this PC path, is that the more you cater to their extremely unreasonable and unwarranted hyper-sensitivity to all things religious, their demands and expectations will only increase proportionately. And then what do we have? They need to become much more tolerant, if they expect us to tolerate them.

Photo credits: Fotosearch.com and Louisa Lim, NPR