Workers' Liberty

By Sacha Ismail

I'm not, shall we say, an avid reader of the Daily Express, but its frontpage headline today (Saturday 18 November) caught my eye. "Fury over halal Christmas dinner" shout big letters, over an article bizarrely devoted to a "story" about one school in Rotherham deciding to serve its children halal chicken rather than turkey.

It was a useful reminder of the priorities of all the bourgeois press, but particularly rags like the Express, ignoring hugely significant events (a million workers strike over pensions? Give it 300 words on p20!) while concentrating on nonsense and trivia. But it seems to me that the Express story is also indicative of something much worse - the tabloids' growing campaign to whip up bigotry against British Muslims (who have joined asylum-seekers as the favoured targets). The disproportionate attention given to this "issue" only served to underline that.

The article claimed that Christmas dinner had been "banned" at the school (in fact, not even turkey had been "banned" - if they serve cauliflower instead of carrots, does that mean that carrots are "banned"?) This was followed by predictable quotations from supposedly representative parents and right-wing wonks from groups like the Christian People’s Alliance about how "British" and "Christian" values are under attack because of political correctness etc – which is of course the real theme the Express editors want to hammer home. (Incidentally, since when has eating turkey at Christmas had anything to do with Christianity?)

Where do you begin? Fundamentally, unless you’re a British nationalist or Christian bigot, why does it matter whether your kids have turkey for school dinner? No one cares unless it’s because they want to kick up a reactionary fuss about "our" way of life being under threat, or because they’ve been caught up in the deliberately generated hysteria. By contrast, many Muslims take the issue of only eating halal meat very seriously. Now, as a committed atheist and secularist, I obviously think this dietary requirement is irrational and I certainly oppose it being imposed by parents on their children. But what's wrong with the school deciding to serve only halal food on this occasion? It means providing food all children can eat, helping those of Muslim background without hurting anyone else.

Of course, the Express is more concerned about the "right" to have turkey for Christmas dinner at one school than it is about the numerous schools which, I assume, make no or inadequate provision for halal and other special diets. (14 out of 16 comps in Rotherham, by the way, apparently do the sensible thing and always provide a choice of meats.) This reminds me of the way the BNP concentrate attention on a small number of allegedly racist attacks on white people so that they can downplay the flood of racist violence against ethnic minorities.

In fact, as I said, the Express’s real concern is nothing to do with Christmas dinner and everything to do with exploiting people’s ignorance and insecurity to strengthen British nationalist sentiment and incite bigotry against Muslims.