Am I about to over-react?

Galvasean

robindch wrote: »

Another choice of food! Just so that they're offering a range of food that's roughly equivalent to what they're receiving when they visit elsewhere.

That's what reciprocation means unless there's something I'm missing!

It sounds to me that is exactly what they are doing but the OP just does not like that it happens to be halal (and not for any flavour or animal rights reasons).
I must agree with MM's analogy:

MagicMarker wrote: »

The OP is not being forced to adhere to dietary restrictions any more than someone who likes the chickens from Dunnes being served one bought in Tescos.

al28283

legspin wrote: »

Yet again I must iterate the taste of the food is completly unimportant but rather more what that food represents.

What does the food represent to an athiest? What does an athiest care about a blessing?

If they offered an identical meal slaughtered in the same way without the blessing would that stop you being annoyed?

Have you asked them to provide something without meat?

schemingbohemia

robindch wrote: »

Another choice of food! Just so that they're offering a range of food that's roughly equivalent to what they're receiving when they visit elsewhere.

That's what reciprocation means unless there's something I'm missing!

You are missing something - as a cricketer in most clubs the players themselves prepare sandwiches or cakes for themselves and the opposition, there's usually no "meal" per se.

As a vegetarian I usually make either cheese and pickle sandwiches or egg mayo, others would usually make ham and cheese or meat sandwiches. A good few years ago I was playing for Civil Service against North Kildare which would have been a predominately muslim team (lads working in Kepak) and most of our lads had made Ham sandwiches so the opposition just had to eat the cakes etc (apart from my sandwiches).

The club members were mortified at the oversight (I think it may have been the first year that North Kildare were in existance) and it didn't happen again - in fairness the lads from North Kildare didn't complain or anything, it was just an oversight.

I subsequently played with Dundrum who had a largely Indian (and Hindu) membership, they usually prepared mostly vegetarian and chicken sandwiches, never heard any compaints.

I'm sure from the OPs subsequent comments that this is about other issues he has with muslims and nothing to do with dietary issues.

Mark Hamill

legspin wrote: »

Both Robin and Dr.Emma have the right of it. The hospitality aspect IS the crux of the matter.

How is it inhospitable for them to offer their own ethnic food (that you have no dietary or ethical reasons not to eat?) Lets say you got an invite to play a cricket match in Pakistan or something, would you complain that the food there is all halal? For a lot of people, being hospitable to a foreigner would include showing them their cuisine and lifestyle. It would be pretty boring if every time you went to someone's house for a meal, you just ate the same food you ate at home.

legspin

Mark Hamill wrote: »

How is it inhospitable for them to offer their own ethnic food (that you have no dietary or ethical reasons not to eat?) Lets say you got an invite to play a cricket match in Pakistan or something, would you complain that the food there is all halal? For a lot of people, being hospitable to a foreigner would include showing them their cuisine and lifestyle. It would be pretty boring if every time you went to someone's house for a meal, you just ate the same food you ate at home.

True, but surely the same must hold in the opposite direction. It doesn't though and that is not right. They won't eat our ethnic food. Claiming a religious exemption just doesn't wash with me.

I do have issues with islam, massive ones. As an atheist how can I not? However, those issues apply to all other religions as well.

There are several people here whose opinions and comments I respect on other matters who have basically told me to get a life. Perhaps they are correct. The more I think on it there might be something else other than a belief in sauce for the goose behind my objection.
I suppose my objection then is ethical to a certain extent. I realise that I was being unthinkingly hypocritical when I mentioned kebabs earlier. If I am to be true to what I think to be right I can never eat another one.
And before anyone thinks I'm just being petty for the sake of it I don't expect anyone to agree with me, this not being Atheism +. However, as far as I am concerned all religious practices are dangerous hooey and I must fight against them as I can (as a relatively powerless individual) and I won't cherry pick. To do anything else would be to deny what I am and what I hold dear. I'm sure Zaytoons will not lose so much as a minute of sleep over the fact that they have just lost a customer but meh, it is what it is and I must assuage my conscience.

Seriously though folks thanks for the opinions and comment. I won't trouble you further in this thread.

Nodin

legspin wrote: »

True, but surely the same must hold in the opposite direction. It doesn't though and that is not right. They won't eat our ethnic food..

They won't eat spuds? You'd prefer if they ate a cow that had been slaughtered with a hurley?

legspin wrote: »

Claiming a religious exemption just doesn't wash with me..

But you claiming an exemption over nothing save the fact they approve of the food is supposed to wash with them?

legspin wrote: »

There are several people here whose opinions and comments I respect on other matters who have basically told me to get a life. Perhaps they are correct. The more I think on it there might be something else other than a belief in sauce for the goose behind my objection. ..

I'd say there is, allright.

legspin wrote: »

I suppose my objection then is ethical to a certain extent...

Not in the bloody slightest. Something along the "cutting off the nose to spite the face" lines.

Sulla Felix

legspin wrote: »

However, as far as I am concerned all religious practices are dangerous hooey and I must fight against them as I can (as a relatively powerless individual) and I won't cherry pick. To do anything else would be to deny what I am and what I hold dear.

Unbending adherence to principles, however innately legitimate or passionately held, is something that I've seen this forum and atheists generally, point to as one of the chief reasons that religion is a cause for ill.

I can see where you're coming from with all this, even if I don't agree with it, but really in any ethical tug of war, battles have to be picked so that the war can be won. On any issue, generally the best results are made when the most glaring transgressions are fought first.

For example, one of the reasons PETA are held in such low regard, even in the relatively cosy world of animal rights movement is because they have such an unyielding approach to each and every incidence of maltreatment.

The small section of the population that even cares to begin with only has a limited threshold of attention it will give to any theme, so if we waste time trying to get the keeping of buderigars in cages of <10m3 outlawed and making small ethnic cricket teams serve both halal and haram food, then we'll find we don't have much of an audience when it comes time to demand that battery chicken farms be shut or that the church relinquish some of grasp on our childrens education.

There is a hierarchy of importance. All the issues are important, but some are more important than others.

schemingbohemia

legspin wrote: »

True, but surely the same must hold in the opposite direction. It doesn't though and that is not right. They won't eat our ethnic food. Claiming a religious exemption just doesn't wash with me.

I do have issues with islam, massive ones. As an atheist how can I not? However, those issues apply to all other religions as well.

There are several people here whose opinions and comments I respect on other matters who have basically told me to get a life. Perhaps they are correct. The more I think on it there might be something else other than a belief in sauce for the goose behind my objection.
I suppose my objection then is ethical to a certain extent. I realise that I was being unthinkingly hypocritical when I mentioned kebabs earlier. If I am to be true to what I think to be right I can never eat another one.
And before anyone thinks I'm just being petty for the sake of it I don't expect anyone to agree with me, this not being Atheism +. However, as far as I am concerned all religious practices are dangerous hooey and I must fight against them as I can (as a relatively powerless individual) and I won't cherry pick. To do anything else would be to deny what I am and what I hold dear. I'm sure Zaytoons will not lose so much as a minute of sleep over the fact that they have just lost a customer but meh, it is what it is and I must assuage my conscience.

Seriously though folks thanks for the opinions and comment. I won't trouble you further in this thread.

What rubbish are you spouting now? They do eat our ethnic food, they have certainly done so at every cricket club I've played at, I've never heard any muslim ask if the chicken or beef was halal, they just ate it anyway.

Really your prejudices are really showing now when you blatantly lie about this situation.

Shenshen

legspin wrote: »

There is a minor issue in my own life that is beginning to trouble me.

I play cricket. Now please don't laugh but within the game, the tea interval is an integral aspect of the social aspect of the game (not to mention an opportunity to refresh oneself from an arduous afternoon of standing in a field on a pleasant summer's afternoon....). As those in the know will understand there is a fair number of muslims from the sub-continent playing it. In some clubs there is a large majority of them and in a small number of them they set up the clubs for themselves and are 100% muslim. Recently, I have found that these clubs in particular are serving only halal food at the tea interval. I don't have a problem with the taste of food but with the assumption that I would be willing to eat it at all. I don't personally expect anyone to eat what I do but that they expect me to eat by their dietary requirements is beginning to really bug me. I have said nothing yet (apart from the occasional mutter to my captain) and the season has just finished so it won't be an issue again untill next year.

Should I say nothing or am I right to object to being expected to eat by the dietary rules of a moronic superstition?
I must add that the problem is not limited to halal. If the food was kosher the objection would be the same but there isn't that many jews playing cricket here since Carlise stopped playing as a club back in the nineties.

Of course, I don't have to eat it, but like I said the hospitality aspect of the game is important. No one expects that they would eat the sausage sandwiches that are traditional in my own club (and for which it it famed within North Dublin cricket as far as I understand) but other foods are provided. My objection is the lack of reciprocation.

Am I over-reacting?

Maybe a little bit...
Just to put it into a different context : How would you feel if, say, a group of vegetarians got together and started their own cricket team? Would you insist that they still serve you meat?
Personally, I would have a bit of a problem with halal food, same as I would have with kosher, due to the way the animals are being slaughtered. I regard this as highly inhumane. But I don't think I would complain, it's their club, their rules. I simply would either avoid eating the meat served, or be diplomatic and bring my own food.

robindch

schemingbohemia - there's no need to throw around accusations of dishonesty in this - please calm down.

schemingbohemia

Well until the OP clearly states when and where these muslim players actively refused to eat "our ethnic food" then I stand by my statement that he is lying. When I say "actively" I mean that they clearly stated they would not eat food that was not halal not that they just didn't eat it.

The cricket community in Ireland is very small, I'd have heard of this if it had happened, that's why I have my doubts.

I note that you haven't warned the OP regarding his statement to the contrary.

robindch

I presume legspin is referring to islamic players not wanting to eat the sausages he referred to in the first post?

Shenshen

robindch wrote: »

I presume legspin is referring to islamic players not wanting to eat the sausages he referred to in the first post?

Much as I'm opposed to people allowing religion to dictate their lives, at the end of the day it's their choice what they put in their mouths and what they don't.

Some people choose to be vegetarian, some people have serious dislikes of certain foods, some people will not ever try anything they've not had before, and some people will only eat certain animals killed in a certain way.

I think to make a big issue out of this and to blame either side for not wanting to eat the "ethnic food" is getting fairly close to over-reacting.

robindch

schemingbohemia wrote: »

You are missing something - as a cricketer in most clubs the players themselves prepare sandwiches or cakes for themselves and the opposition, there's usually no "meal" per se.

Fair enough. So perhaps the islamic players could drop by a local Spar and grab a few ham sandwiches, bangers or whatever?

schemingbohemia wrote: »

I'm sure from the OPs subsequent comments that this is about other issues he has with muslims and nothing to do with dietary issues.

I don't quite see why. I could describe catholicism in pretty much identical terms as legspin described islam, but it's not going to stop me going (as I will be) to a friend's funeral next Monday in a catholic church.

Shenshen wrote: »

Much as I'm opposed to people allowing religion to dictate their lives, at the end of the day it's their choice what they put in their mouths and what they don't. [...]

I don't think anybody is trying to force islamic believers to eat sausages?

Shenshen wrote: »

I think to make a big issue out of this and to blame either side for not wanting to eat the "ethnic food" is getting fairly close to over-reacting.

I'm not making a big issue out of this and I don't think legspin is either. For me, and I believe for legspin, this is about reciprocation between hosts and visitors and it's about reciprocation only. Albeit in a case where the lack of reciprocation appears to derive, at least in part, from religion.

Nobody really seems to get the point about reciprocation, or to accept it if they do get it, and, well, I suppose in that case, there's not a whole lot of point in continuing to talk past each other.

/shrugs

schemingbohemia

robindch wrote: »

I presume legspin is referring to islamic players not wanting to eat the sausages he referred to in the first post?

I wouldn't eat the sausages he refers to either, being a vegetarian. Does that mean I'm disrespecting his club? Of course not. If I were coeliac would that be the same? Of course not.

This has nothing to do with dietary requirements it's to do with racism.

robindch

robindch wrote: »

[...] this is about reciprocation between hosts and visitors and it's about reciprocation only

schemingbohemia wrote: »

[...] it's to do with racism.

I give up.

schemingbohemia

robindch wrote: »

I give up.

You're not the OP, it's nothing to do with reciprocation - if you read his other posts and mine stating what actually happens at cricket teas you will understand.

You're putting a spin on what the OP stated.

wonderfulname

It's nothing to do with reciprocation, that is covered by serving you up grub you can eat. I don't understand how you guys can keep going on about manners with regards that and ignore that it's very basic manners to ignore your hosts/guests oddities when they have absolutely no effect on you.

doctoremma

wonderfulname wrote: »

It's nothing to do with reciprocation, that is covered by serving you up grub you can eat. I don't understand how you guys can keep going on about manners with regards that and ignore that it's very basic manners to ignore your hosts/guests oddities when they have absolutely no effect on you.

Woah.

doctoremma wrote: »

It is incumbent on a host to provide for guest's needs. However, it is also incumbent on a guest to be as gracious as possible when receiving hospitality.

wonderfulname

doctoremma wrote: »

Woah.

How could anyone ignore it if you hadn't said it?

Shenshen

robindch wrote: »

Nobody really seems to get the point about reciprocation, or to accept it if they do get it, and, well, I suppose in that case, there's not a whole lot of point in continuing to talk past each other.

/shrugs

I think I do get the point about reciprocation, well at least I think I do.
But I think that in some cases, there are limits. I would not eat meat even if my host served it to me, I would politely decline and eat whatever else there might be (non-meats, in other words). And I would not be prepared to cook a steak for someone who comes to me as a guest, while I would of course respect their own dietary requirements and preferences.

The point I'm trying to make is that some people impose dietary restrictions upon themselves, for religious reasons, for moral reasons, sometimes for no reasons at all. And asking them to disregard these for reasons of reciprocation is a little too idealistic, it would be better to find the common denominator (as in, food everybody can and wants to eat), rather than focus on the things that some can't or won't eat.

Mark Hamill

robindch wrote: »

Nobody really seems to get the point about reciprocation, or to accept it if they do get it, and, well, I suppose in that case, there's not a whole lot of point in continuing to talk past each other.

But how is the muslim team not reciprocating by offering food the OP has no dietary or ethical reasons not to eat?
From what I can see, the muslim team makes a spread that the OP can eat in its entirety, while the OPs team makes a spread that the muslims can only eat partially (they can't eat the non halal meat). Who is really reciprocating more?

Galvasean

Mark Hamill wrote: »

But how is the muslim team not reciprocating by offering food the OP has no dietary or ethical reasons not to eat?
From what I can see, the muslim team makes a spread that the OP can eat in its entirety, while the OPs team makes a spread that the muslims can only eat partially (they can't eat the non halal meat). Who is really reciprocating more?

Apparently to 'reciprocate' they have to go out of their way for the sake of going out of their way. Truly an exercise in pointless tit-for-tat if there ever was one.
It would be like if every time the Dubs played a game in Croker they had to 'reciprocate' the bother it took the opposition to get to Dublin by driving half way down to the country and then head back to Dublin again just because one player on the opposition team felt they weren't putting enough effort into turning up to their own stadium. Utterly pointless.