Compliant

I have seen, in this country, Turkish pork products labelled as halal-slaughtered. It strikes me as perfectly possibly that those might have found their way into pies to be served to Muslim prisoners.

I am not seeking to excuse that. But the whole thing might very well have been halal-certified at every stage of the process, beginning in the last country to date to have been the seat of the Caliphate, a country which has a basically and ultimately Islamist Government at this very moment.

For we are told that Turkey is fundamentally a Western country, welcome in NATO and to be welcomed into the EU. We are assured that her ruling AKP is led by "former Islamists", and is "Muslim Democrat" in the way that some European parties are Christian Democrat, wholly fit to legislate for us at Strasbourg or behind the closed doors of Brussels.

But in fact, the AKP government is going to enormous and vicious legal lengths to kill off the pork industry in Turkey, halal-certified though its products are. After all, how else does anyone in Turkey know how to slaughter an animal for meat? Including if that animal happens to be a pig.

Do the indigenous Christians of the Middle East eat halal meat? I have been asking that for a while, but have been unable to obtain an answer. I suppose that they must, since what other meat is there? And if they do, then there cannot be anything wrong with it in principle.

It certainly bears comparison with the products of many of our own raising and slaughtering practices. In similar vein, there is most definitely nothing wrong with financial services that eschew usury. The problem is our failure to reach into our own authentic tradition, thus leaving the way clear for Islam.

But we must not mention our own authentic tradition. Just as we must not mention the indigenous Christians in the Middle East, including Turkey. And just as we must not mention the beleaguered Turkish pig farmers, with all that their plight represents.