Hey, folks, how are you doing? Yeah, I figured. It seems pretty scary out there, huh? Lotta people with funny-sounding names from distant lands seem to be doing a lot of bad stuff. I get it, you’re afraid. And fear makes people do crazy things, especially when their fears are being demagogued by anthropomorphic piles of raw sewage. So when people start throwing severed pig’s heads at mosques…well, I don’t agree with doing that, and I certainly don’t condone it, but I understand what motivates it and I’m frankly surprised that it took this long for that kind of thing to start happening.
But look, I don’t want you guys to waste valuable time, time you could spend, I don’t know, stocking up on adult diapers or building a safe room in your house or whatever. So I’d like to offer the following, very short, primer on what happens to Muslims when they’re exposed to pigs or pig products:
Q: What happens to Muslims when they’re exposed to pigs or pig products?
A: Nothing
And that’s it! Told you it was short!
See, here’s the thing: just like observant Jews who keep Kosher, Muslims aren’t supposed to eat pork, assuming they’re keeping to the dietary laws of their faith. And much like observant Jews, that’s really where the whole thing ends. Muslims who walk by the cold cuts case at their local non-halal supermarket won’t burst into flames. A Muslim who smells bacon cooking won’t begin convulsing. Muslims who are exposed to a pig or some part of a pig won’t lose their super powers, like Superman does when he’s exposed to Kryptonite, partly because pork isn’t Kryptonite but also because Muslims (at least most of them?) don’t have any super powers to lose!
Also too, the chances that the Muslims at your local mosque are plotting the destruction of America or of you personally are exceedingly small. So when you cut the head off of a pig and throw it at the door of that mosque, you’re committing vandalism, and you’re expending a lot of your own effort as well as the effort of whomever has to clean up the mess you’ve made, but you are most likely not dealing a heroic blow against global terrorism.
Similarly, many Muslims also do not consume alcohol, because their faith forbids it. However, if you pour a fifth of bourbon on a Muslim (please do not do this!) they will not melt like the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz. In fact, many widely revered Islamic scientific, philosophical, cultural, and literary figures throughout history were regular wine drinkers–some of them wrote amazing poetry about it! And many widely reviled Islamic rulers throughout history were, well, inveterate drunks, but they were reviled for what they did as rulers, not for what they consumed. Although all the drinking probably did mess up their judgment…tell you what, let’s forget that last part.
Anyway, if sawing the head off of a pig and throwing it at a mosque means that you’re not going to go out and, I don’t know, shoot up that mosque instead, then by all means stick with the pig. But if sawing the head off of a pig prevents you from doing something more constructive, like getting a goddamn hold of yourself, then I say opt for the latter. Thanks for reading!
The Foreign Exchanges Companion 