A clearly offensive and outrageous advertisement!
The Tayside, Scotland Police Force has apologised after complaints that an advertisement promoting the force's new non-emergency telephone number, and featuring a 29-week old black German shepherd puppy sitting on a police officer's hat, could be seen offensive to members of the local Muslim community. Some very strict muslims consider dogs "unclean." >> To read more
.
4 comments:
Too bad. The Scottish Police should have said, "perhaps in your culture, dogs are unclean, but in our culture they are loyal protectors."
Islamic shop keepers maybe should have requested a plain poster for their shops instead of being outraged. The Brits love their dogs, and to expect them to change this ad would be like expecting them to not be British.
If you want to play the political game, you have to know when to pick your battles -- you can only play the "outrage" card so many times before the majority just decides to tune you out.
If the Muslim councilman had simply asked for a meeting with the Police Chief and said "Our shopkeepers really want to help out and publicize the new non-emergency number, but they are uncomfortable with the dog photo, here's why and could you print up another poster without the dog image?" everyone would have respected everyone else and the Police Chief would have probably dug into his budget and printed up another poster for the shopkeepers and maybe even made up a new mailing list so that those who didn't want to receive the dog image in the mail, wouldn't.
Instead, the Muslim Councilman looks like a grandstanding boob, which may play well for the moment with his Islamic consituants, but isn't going to help him cut any deals with his peers on Council or -- considering the publicity this is garnering, nearly anywhere in Britian. And if you can't bring home the falafel (as bacon isn't acceptable in Islam ;-)), you're failing your first job as a politican.
It's also getting a little precious to be picking on a police dog -- at least in some strains of Islam, dogs with a purpose (like herding) are acceptable, although I have read a few newspaper stories about Muslims complaining about service dogs for the disabled.
I'm hardly an expert on the Islamic faith, but supposedly, the Prophet did preach compassion to all creatures -- you may not be supposed to eat a pig, but that doesn't mean you're supposed to mistreat it as a living being.
Dorene
Here is another story of a similar nature.
http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/50071
Hm, in a culture where dogs are practically surrogate children and friends, a subcultureM who sees them as filthy beasts gets deferential treatment? Ridiculous. Nobody was forcing anyone to use the cards if they felt they were disgusting.
Post a Comment