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full screen Center leader Muharrem Demirok with the dog Allan. Photo: Stefan Jerrevång
Shall we eat dog for dinner? I asked a colleague when we were at work in Beijing.
He was totally pissed off. It would be like eating a family member, he said.
Grilled or boiled? I said.
The colleague had a dog at home, which I remembered when I tried to understand his upset. I still didn’t understand it. It wasn’t his we were going to eat.
During the Easter weekend I was a dog watcher. I was lying on the couch with a backache and the dog was very easy to manage. It belonged to a breed bred for centuries to be man’s companion and pleasure. Its owner suggested it was the favorite dog of royalty.
It lacked all ambition. It didn’t run after balls, not after sticks. It was mildly amused sniffing around the garden and it was impossible to imagine it going after a deer or even a squirrel.
It preferred the sofa. I was lying on the couch. It lay on me and licked my nose which in itself was nice but rather monotonous after the first two licks.
I had books to read but first I checked Facebook and fell straight into an idiot thread about Muharrem Demirok. He had posed for a picture where he ate raw. No pork.
That the Muslim Demirok does not eat pork is apparently incredibly remarkable and outrageous, it was clear from the comments. They were many.
Grown men were angry and mocking and indignant. It was important to them that everyone should eat pork. And that anyone who eats raw crab but no pork is worthy of all contempt.
People from different cultures have different views on animals. In Beijing you could eat dog. In southern China cat and anything else you can imagine. If I remember correctly, you could choose from live cute cats at a restaurant in Guangzhou. They sat in cages and you pointed and said, I want that, and the cook lifted it up by the scruff of the neck and carried it out to the kitchen.
In India, cows are sacred.
You will not find a Muslim in the Middle East who keeps a dog because it is unclean.
Farmers are friends with their animals. In the past, before animal breeding became big industry, the animals had names and they were given all the love before they were slaughtered and put on the table.
None of what I write here is anything strange.
But that a Swedish party leader seems to avoid pork gives the less gifted sections of our society fuel for burning indignation and boundless resentment.
Or maybe they’re not as stupid as they seem. Maybe they are something as simple as old fashioned racists. Yes, that’s enough: one of the writers thought that Demirok deserved a Danish skull.
I put the phone down. The dog without ambitions was half asleep on my chest. Sometimes it purred but it could not have been because it was dreaming of hunting and adventure in the forest, rather about the next half deciliter of small brown pellets it gets for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The king’s dog has a sensitive stomach.
Sure, it was nice and disarmingly cute, but it didn’t evoke stronger feelings in me than a cow or goose would. Not to mention the squirrel that lived with her young under the roof tiles last year.
So why shouldn’t you be able to eat dog?
You can suggest that to those who roar and scream because someone avoids pork.
You can eat your damn dogs!