Beer, Ham and Muslim Shoes

The UK Home Secretary has warned about complacency in the face of Islamic extremism. But there are no worries about complacency when it comes to things that irritate Muslims. As a drunken fellow from Bristol found out when decided it would be funny to stuff pieces of ham into the shoes of mosquegoers. Twenty years ago this might have made for an amusing limerick. Today it's a possible two year jail term.

"It is difficult to imagine a more offensive incident", said Her Honour Judge Carol Hagen. Her Honour clearly lacks imagination. But even if she can't imagine a pig with a burning koran in its mouth being catapulted in the direction of Mecca, there is the teacher who was savagely beaten by Muslim thugs for the crime of teaching Muslim girls. Smashing in a man's face seems worse than some ham in a shoe.

The prosecutor harrumphed that pork products in shoes were a "premeditated attack specifically targeted at the Muslim community". As premeditated attacks go, this has more in common with Dr. Seuss, than with the sort of attacks that the Muslim community specializes in. When the Muslim community launches a premeditated attack, there's burning rubble and body parts that have to be scraped up off the sidewalk. The only thing that had to be scraped off this time around was stale pork.

Not to be left behind in the misplaced outrage sweepstakes, the ham stuffer's attorney called it, "a brutal, misconceived, drunken prank." It was doubtlessly drunken, but how brutal was it? On a scale of silly to brutal, putting pork in shoes ranks somewhere below a water bucket over the door and above a joy buzzer. But when even your own lawyer describes something that has more in common with a Dada art exhibit, than the savage beating of a teacher, as brutal, then there isn't anyone left to make the case for you.

Objectively speaking the actual damage performed by a little bit of pig was negligible. And it hard to say that a slice of ham is particularly threatening, except to a pig. But Western countries have learned to harshly punish those who offend Muslims, not because of the crime itself, but its potential to set off a murderous response by the Muslims themselves. For all that the politicians pretend that they're cracking down on those who make the poor Muslim dears feel unwelcome in Albion, Columbia or Marianne, in the name of human rights, it's the explosive reaction that they're worried about.

Forget noble and think Nobel, not the prize, but the formula that has become the new Muslim scripture. C3H5(NO3)3 is the true 99th name of Allah. Hidden under bulky clothes on a plane or metro platform, it sends the Muslim to his virgin demon paradise and sends politicians scrambling to wall off any scenario where more Muslims will be inclined to study wiring diagrams and Koran verses in equal measure. The politicians and judges may damn the ham stuffers as racist thugs, but they know quite well that the real racist thugs are busy listening to Al-Awlaki sermons inside.

This isn't the first 'hate crime' brought into being by a drunk and a sloppy mosque whose members never learned to pick up after themselves.

Last fall, a man named Omar on a three day bender who hardly knew where he was going, urinated outside a mosque. Normally this would have gotten him a ticket for public urination, but little did he know that his recycled beer was befouling the prayer rugs of a mosque. No sooner than you can cry, 'Alakazam', newspaper headlines were spilling outraged red ink over the 'Racist Mosque Urinator'. And the world's unluckiest drunk (outside of Saudi Arabia) was staring into the face of hate crimes charges.

For Omar the Micturator, there was a happy ending, as he was was set free to drink his fill of beer, and Rachel Barenblat, a radical anti-Israel activist, began fundraising to buy new prayer rugs for the mosque, despite the presence of anti-semitic and homophobic materials on its website. But in the UK, Jamie Knowlson has received a suspended sentence, and the outrage of a nation where Muslims may burn poppies and curse at returning soldiers, but no one may put ham in their shoes and go unpunished.

But of course the shoe of a Muslim is so much more important than the poppy, just as the Koran carries so much more weight than the American flag. You can burn the flag, the Constitution and all of Lincoln's letters, just don't lay a hand on that Koran. And you can tug on superman's cape and gleefully shout death threats at soldiers, but don't you dare add a pork lining to a sacred shoe.

Why not? Islam is the religion of peace, you know. A normally unnecessary declaration that sounds like introducing yourself as Norman 'Not a Serial Killer' Bates or Michael 'Very Thin' Moore. Most religions let their track record of not recently killing people speak for itself.  But when your track record makes Nazis enviously lick their lips, then you have to rebuild a positive brand. Like oil companies who use a sun logo or insurance companies who claim to care, branding yourself as the 'Religion of Peace' would be unconvincing even if they weren't constantly digging up new body parts in your backyard.

Pakistan's president arrived, three weeks after his country's coverup of Bin Laden's location ended in a hail of bullets, to let the House of Lords know that Islam is a Religion of Peace. Somewhere. Somehow. Despite all the piles of bodies stretching across time and space, it is a religion of peace. Hardly any Muslim violence happens anymore without one of those reminders. Suicide bombing? Time to put out a press release on Islam being a Religion of Peace (TM). Right up there with oil companies emphasizing their record of environmental responsibility after every oil spill.

But the Pakistani leader hadn't just arrived to remind everything that Islam has nothing to do with the violence it perpetrates. He was also there to propose one of Mohammed's daughters as a "shining moral example for all the women across the globe." Presumably because she didn't vote, drive or ever look a man in the eyes. Move over Marie Curie. Get out of the way Jane Addams. Have we got a role model for you.

In Kuwait, a woman is taking Mohammed's role modeling seriously, by proposing to bring back sex slavery in a standardized way. The good woman proposed that Muslim countries attack Christian ones, and then seize some fifteen year old girls and sell them as sex slaves. In the name of morality of course. And over in Malaysia, the local police take that sort of thing seriously, rounding up suspected prostitutes, chaining them up and using brands on their faces and chests. But at least no one put ham in their shoes. Not that it would matter, Islam considers women sold into sexual slavery to be literally subhuman.

At least more subhuman than women in general, and non-Muslims in general, and all the other people that Islam considers subhuman. But the good thing about having so many subhumans around, is that there's always someone around to step on. Just ask the original Bavarian goosesteppers. And when you insist on stepping on so many people, eventually someone steps back. Even if it's only to stick some of Mr Porky Pork Crackles' best into the toe of your jackboots while you're praying for the subjugation of the inferior races.

But it is vital that we remember what is really important here. Ham and shoes. And anything that offends Muslims. It is vital that we forget the terror, the massacres, murders, rapes and honor killings. It is vital that we pay no attention to the fact that nearly every rape in Oslo in the past five years was perpetrated by the Religion of Sex Slaves. Ignore the Muslim university speakers preaching that there is a permanent state of war between Islam and the rest of the world. It's a thin line between thinking forbidden thoughts and doing forbidden things.  If you concede reality, then you might as well be a ham shoe stuffer yourself.