Muslims and Jews exclude pork from their diets and there is none to be found in this country (although anecdotes about dried pork smuggled in abound), so it was fascinating to see some recent news. This was reported in Qatar Living which provides blogs for a variety of people. The following quote comes from one person’s space, the family Muslim, and relates the story of the Disney book found in books stores with the character piglet blacked out. I only give a few pieces but you can follow the URL for more discussion and more photos. (NB: There is an excellent English language bookstore in the Virgin Megastore located at Villaggio, the mall with the Venetian canal and gondola, despite the opening comments.) As a follow-up on this story, I note that some time ago here in Qatar I purchased Reynolds cooking bags and when I took the box out of the bag at home saw that on the back the suggested recipe was for pork tenderloins, and it wasn’t blacked out.
Disney's Piglet banned in Middle East! From http://www.qatarliving.com/blog/camper/disneys-piglet-banned-in-middle-east
By camper on Sun, 28/01/2007 - 9:29pm
In Qatar there is only one decent bookshop (that happens to be a Saudi chain) that has a few shelves of English books. Shopping there is hit or miss - you don't go there to look for a title. You go there in the hope of stumbling upon something interesting. The kids’ selection is not bad though. The other night we saw Disney's "My Very First Encyclopedia with Winnie the Pooh and friends". We grabbed it and thought it was exactly what we needed for our daughter - not only does she love Winnie the Pooh but she's also started taking a keen interest in nature.
Piglet Censored in Middle East : Hello Kids!
We flipped it open and noticed that some of the pages had been vandalized with a black marker. We figured it must have been bought and returned after some kids had got there hands on it. Further inspection made us realize that this was actually systematic. Someone had deliberately "censored" out each and every picture of Piglet from hundreds of pages in the book with a black marker (my guess is that the book got caught by Saudi Censors enroute to Doha). …
This whole incident reminded me of a discussion with a friend from South Africa a few years ago. He was explaining kindness and mercy in Islam. He said that a even a pig, a creature which is seen as "despised" by Muslims, is a creature of God and should thus be treated with kindness and mercy. So while we should not eat it, that doesn't meant that Muslims are interested in torturing or trying to exterminate them... even if only with a brand new 3-inch black marker. If a pig was injured, it would be a Muslims duty to assist it.
