Posted on 09/19/2005 11:41:14 AM PDT by Millee
In the latest example of Western business interests giving in to pressure by offended Muslims, Burger King reportedly has withdrawn an ice cream product after complaints that a label design looks like the Arabic script for "Allah."
British media reported at the weekend that the fast-food restaurant chain pulled the "BK Cone" and pledged to redesign the label after Muslim customers complained.
The product label bears a pattern representing a stylized swirl of soft serve ice cream. But some customer looked at it sideways and thought they could see something else.
A London tabloid, The Sun, said Burger King fielded "dozens of complaints."
Another paper, the Scotsman, said Burger King "is being forced to spend thousands of pounds redesigning the lid." It quoted a Muslim Council of Britain spokesman as commending the company for "sensitive and prompt action."
Other business interests that have run afoul of Muslim sensibilities in similar circumstances include sportswear giant Nike, Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld and food and homecare manufacturer Unilever.
In 1997, Nike pulled tens of thousands of basketball shoes after it was told that the logo - the word "air" in flame-like letters - looked like "Allah" in Arabic when viewed from a certain angle.
Newsweek reported in July of that year that Nike had launched a program of "sensitivity training on Islam" and gave a donation to an Islamic school.
A year later, Unilever scrapped a new logo it had begun to use on Walls ice creams in the Middle East - again after Muslims said the intertwining red and yellow hearts looked like "Allah" in Arabic, when viewed upside down and backwards.
In 1994, Lagerfeld designed a dress incorporating a pattern he had copied from Arabic lettering on India's Taj Mahal monument. The lettering included the phrase "They are the ones who found guidance," used a number of times in the Koran.
German supermodel Claudia Schiffer received death threats after wearing the dress, prompting her mother to make a public plea for her safety. The designer apologized and burned the garments. He also destroyed photographs and negatives of the dress.
Coca Cola has for years struggled to dispel the rumor that the soft drink's trademark swirly-writing logo, when seen at a particular angle, looked like the Arabic script for "No Mohammed, No Mecca."
The company's website has a "myths and rumors" section where it contests the charge, arguing that "the trademark was created in 1886 in Atlanta, Georgia, at a time and place where there was little knowledge of Arabic."
"The allegation has been brought before a number of senior Muslim clerics in the Middle East who researched it in detail and refuted the rumor outright," it says.
Uhhh, the one on the right has a rather phallic look doesn't it.
The other one just looks like a damn ice cream cone!
Big freakin' deal....
My daughter and her friends are scared when they see that guy!
Not to change the subject (entirely), but does anyone else think that Burger Kings "King" is a bit..weird?
After those commercials where the big-headed one got in bed with his customers..now he's playing football or something..Geez!
Keep the Logo drop the "King".
What do you expect from someone who gives us the "subservient chicken" website?
The PC crowd has sucsessfully turned this country into a circus of stupidity....
I just now received this e-mail.
Subject: FW: FINALLY, a Country with some Backbone...
Get out if you want Sharia law, Australia tells Muslims
CANBERRA: Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told on Wednesday to get out of Australia, as the government targeted radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks. A day after a group of mainstream Muslim leaders pledged loyalty to Australia at a special meeting with Prime Minister John Howard, he and his ministers made it clear that extremists would face a crackdown.
Treasurer Peter Costello, seen as heir apparent to Howard, hinted that some radical clerics could be asked to leave the country if they did not accept that Australia was a secular state and its laws were made by parliament. "If those are not your values, if you want a country which has Sharia law or a theocratic state, then Australia is not for you," he said on national television. "I'd be saying to clerics who are teaching that there are two laws governing people in Australia, one the Australian law and another the Islamic law, that that is false. If you can't agree with parliamentary law, independent courts, democracy, and would prefer Sharia law and have the opportunity to go to another country which practices it, perhaps, then, that's a better option," Costello said. Asked whether he meant radical clerics would be forced to leave, he said those with dual citizenship could possibly be asked move to the other country.
Education Minister Brendan Nelson later told reporters that Muslims who did not want to accept local values should "clear off". "Basically, people who don't want to be Australians, and they don't want to live by Australian values and understand them, well then they can basically clear off," he said. Separately, Howard angered some Australian Muslims on Wednesday by saying he supported spies monitoring the nation's mosques.
AMERICANS.....ARE YOU LISTENING? and reading?
But if we're nice to them maybe they won't blow us up... < /s>
Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told on Wednesday to get out of Australia, as the government targeted radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks. A day after a group of mainstream Muslim leaders pledged loyalty to Australia at a special meeting with Prime Minister John Howard, he and his ministers made it clear that extremists would face a crackdown.
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Now, this is how a responsible, STRONG, serious government handles Muslim radicals. The Australians realize that they are not going to let these infesting maggots hijack their country in any way, shape or fashion.
God bless them -- too bad our government has no spine and fight, when it comes to creeps like these --- just too much worry about politics and votes...
**LOL** I am so stealing that pic!!!!
Yes, but we won't see them, they'll be in the back supervised by male relatives. Let's hope they don't have to work the fryers in those things!
Just curious, is that from Michigan Tech's Winter carnival??
I along with most freepers are offended by the left.....so what can we do about them...
Yeah, but the islamites are barfing over a symbol of an ice cream cone - a good indication of where priorities lie or lack.
"Until we must fight when there is no hope of winning, because it will be better to die than live as slaves."
Churchill
I p**ped this morning and if you looked at over your left shoulder, with dyslexia while standing on your head, it smelled just like Moe-Ham-Head. I ain't apologizing.
{{{SHUDDER}}} Dawg-gone that thing is creepy!! WTH is BK thinking????
French fryers in pig fat popper stoppers?
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