An Australian MP reckons Aussies are being turned into Muslims because they’re unwittingly eating cruelly slaughtered meat.
Oh, Muslims call it halal, which means acceptable to their religion – a religion that clearly favours cruelly dispatched animals unless, as is allowed by some Muslims, prestunning is employed. But the rest of us call it animal cruelty.
The Aussies aren’t exactly being turned into Muslims, but I see what he means. He reckons it’s a step on the way.
“By having Australians unwittingly eating Halal food we are all one step down the path towards the conversion, and that is a step we should only make with full knowledge and one that should not be imposed upon us without us knowing,” Luke Simpkins has said.
He has a point, just as we do in the UK, where we may be eating meat whose slaughter we’d be ethically opposed to, and would reject that meat in favour of prestunned if we did but know.
How many schoolkids are being fed this stuff, because it’s deemed to make more economic sense to buy in meat from one supplier?
I don’t say people should not be able to follow the customs of their religion, but that goes only as far as not imposing suffering on others – including animals, which are stressed enough in livestock markets and abattoirs without having their throats slit while they’re still conscious. And, of course, it shouldn’t be imposed on those of us who reject this barbarism.
But will government do anything about it? How do you know when you buy beef or lamb in a supermarket that it hasn’t had its throat slit while conscious?
There needs to be clear labelling, but preferably a ban on the practice altogether. If they don’t want to eat meat that’s prestunned, they can always go veggie.
See also “Let them eat hake”.
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