Halal
You see this word on everything now; there is even a halal meat market that just opened up just a block from where I live. And Superstore now sells halal-certified fryer chickens. They come in beige-and-green wrapping (infidel chickens come in beige-and-red).
On the one hand, the sudden uptick in the number of food stores and restaurants that are broadcasting their adherence to (or, at least, compliance with) Islamic dietary law shouldn’t be all that striking. Kosher foods are ludicrously common these days; one can find a kosher symbol on almost anything, especially on goods that come in jars or cans. So in a sense, the fact that we are seeing yet more religious certifications attached to foodstuffs is not particularly surprising.
And yet, it is. Partly, I think it is surprising because it is so brazen; whereas kosher is very subtly denoted on foods, “halal” is a term that gets shoved in one’s face, broadcast with big lettering and different-coloured wrapping. Kosher blends in, in other words; halal stands out, and in fact deliberately sets itself apart.
Then there’s the suddenness factor.
I used to work at a camera store near downtown Edmonton, and would occasionally take lunch at a donair and pizza joint a few blocks away. It was decent food (Lebanese do make good pizza)…but about three years ago, they suddenly slapped a big “halal” sign in the window. I stopped going shortly thereafter, though that was, admittedly, due to the fact that I got a job in a different part of town.
Near where I work now, another restaurant recently opened, which dealt in Arabic food; six months after opening, they too declared for halal. I can think of two explicitly halal food stores that I have seen appear in the last eighteen months; Superstore has only been carrying those halal chickens for a short while.
Contrast this with kosher, which seems as though it’s been an element or consideration in our groceries for…forever, really.
So we have brazenness, and we have suddenness. This is still just food we’re talking about, yes, but the food is a symptom — a sign — of something more, and more troubling. For what two words better describe Islam, as expressed by immigrants to Canada who hold that faith, than “sudden” (in the sense of being a recent thing) and “brazen” (or, perhaps, belligerent)? Unlike Jews, who have been a part of our Western culture rather than something set apart from it, Muslims seem bent on being just that: set apart. And they want everyone to know it, as well.
It’s troubling, moreso because it is also the foreseeable future of Canada. There’s the risk of a change in national character that I don’t think we are fully prepared for.
