GPU versus MCM Expo - a Muslim's view

[Anne Drogenous]

Personally, I think it is incredibly respectable that you chose to post on here in response to the comments that we made about our event clashing with yours. Also, you have helped clear up various topics that we were rather confused about.
Please, however, do not apologise for the insults directed at us, as those were from individuals, and not the entirety of the group of people that attended your event. In fact, I have a few pictures, when I was all gore'd up, from various groups of teenage Muslims, and I find that amazing. One Muslim Businesswoman even stopped for a few pics of me posing and a quick chat while we were outside.
We respect that in every community there are people who look out at others in other ways than their peers do, and on here, we just moaned about it a little. As every single one of us that attended our Anime-based event tend to stick out of the government-classified 'normal' even when wearing normal clothes, we are, as a whole, desensitized to the idea of being randomly insulted.
I'm glad you posted on here, at it had helped me understand the situations that both our group, and your group faced.
Thanks again.
xx

[Yatak]

Like i said on the post before, one entity is not to blame, but it is the people inside the entity.

There will always be people who act like jerks or who ruin things for the others, no matter where you go and to blame an entire community over personal incidents is pretty ignorant. A good example of this would be glomping... while only a minority do it, it doesnt mean that the whole cosplaying community finds it acceptable and the same can go for many other things.

Make your opinions of the individual, not the community.

[Reser]

Yes, as stated above , thankyou for making this post.

I agree with everything above, no need to apologise as with every group of people it is few among many, it just seems the way things is usually we remember the bad more then the good at times.

To do with the food, it is indeed the Excel and the food establishments themselves, our event had the same problem with complaints from the componys in the Excel about selling food inside our event. Also i was kind of confused as to what exactly Halal was and none of the shops explained it, so I apologise for any rudeness to do with that cause of my general ignorance. It would seem the shops in question favoured the Halal menu probably because it would be better business. btw does Halal also mean no Ham? as this might explain why me and my friend spent ages looking for a cheese and ham sandwidch and did not find one anywhere LoL.

Anyway thanks again, and I hope we have not offended.

[Yatak]

Also a side note, what is halal? The only food i bought inside the center was a sandwhich from the little shop on the right of the noodle bar (i would rather pay 2.60 than a fiver for food ^^.)

[Anne Drogenous]

Also a side note, what is halal? The only food i bought inside the center was a sandwhich from the little shop on the right of the noodle bar (i would rather pay 2.60 than a fiver for food ^^.)

Halal (حلال, ḥalāl, halaal) is an Arabic term meaning permissible. In the English language, it most frequently refers to food that is permissible according to Islamic law. In the Arabic language, it refers to anything that is permissible under Islam. It is estimated that 70% of Muslims worldwide follow Halal food standards[1] and that the Global Halal Market is currently a USD 580 billion industry[2]. Its antonym is haraam.

...

Adherents to this philosophy maintain that in order for food to be considered halal, it must not be a forbidden substance and any meat must have been slaughtered according to traditional guidelines set forth by the Sunnah, known as dhabiĥa. This is the strictest definition of Halal.

[Yatak]

Ah, i thought it was just a type of flavouring spice >.>.


Learn something new everyday .

[Anne Drogenous]

---EDIT---
lol Anne you beat me to it!

Mad skills, I know.
Internet Browser at the speed of light.
:3 <3

[Yamakaze]

Reactions I got from the other event were largely good. One of the little kids muttered his mum "Look! Ness!".

[Floof]

Ah, i thought it was just a type of flavouring spice >.>.

GENIUS ;D

One of my friends is a muslim, equipped with head scarf and all the trimmings. She also happened to be an expo newbie but a rabid Narutard. So i brought her along on saturday. I've lost count to number of times she she was approached by a GPU worker and asked of she knew where she was going ((when we were queueing to get into expo)). XXDD

She said she wished she cosplayed as a ninja so she'd be let into both events without the bat of an eyelid. I LAWL @ her!

[Trialia]

Hey there. Good to see you over here. I was the person who linked to your blog, so my apologies for confusing your gender

The apology is appreciated, but honestly, that is only you giving it, and you can't speak on behalf of absolutely everyone, just as we can't. The clash between events was very uncomfortable, and very little of the trouble caused was the fault of 'our' side - being treated like lesser beings is inappropriate and very unpleasant, especially when one is doing one's best not to have that effect on other people despite cultural differences without altering the nature of our event... does that make sense? I go to Expo to have fun, and I don't find being verbally abused and having people try to convert me from one faith to another to be enjoyable.

You say it was "the moron element"... but there were a heck of a lot of people who were part of that element, if so. I'm not saying all, and I'm not saying Expo didn't have some idiots either, but really?

[SephNoir]

It's very nice of you to come here and appologise on behalf of everyone but I'm afraid I've got to agree with Trialia's post.
I don't have a problem with the change in menus to include your culture (though I certainly don't eat Halal) as long as there were still other options which it seems in some shops there weren't and didn't have any issue with the sound coming from the other hall, I did however have a problem with being glared at by pretty much everyone we walked past and have some religion I'm not interested in pushed on me.
It certainly wasn't just a group of kids doing all this, it was a total clash of events and judging by the number of people here who were affected in all honesty I don't think these two events should have been run together at all. I found having grown men shouting abuse at me and my partner absolutely terrifying and I dread to think what it would've been like for someone who was on their own leaving the event. The group on the bridge with the megaphone shouting for anyone who wasn't islamic to burn and die was just disturbing and I was glad to be leaving.
Personally I will still be writing to ExCel and hope these two events will never clash again as I most definitely won't be going if it does.

[Reser]

The group on the bridge with the megaphone shouting for anyone who wasn't islamic to burn and die was just disturbing and I was glad to be leaving.

Yeah this was totally uncalled for, and these people seemed to be part of the staff of the event even? Why on earth were people from the event forcing their views and beliefs onto people from our event and in such a disturbing way? There were kids there and everything.

[FuriePhoenix]

If I understand right, Halal is food that has been prepared in a specific way.

I've had halal meat before at a Muslim celebration dinner, it's yummy!
It's kind of the opposite of the traditional Scottish prepared meat I grew up with, where on the one side you have scottish Black Pudding, made almost entirely of blood, and on the other side you have halal meat which is not bloody at all.

I think it has to do with other things as well though, not just the blood aspect

---EDIT---
lol Anne you beat me to it!

Not to put you off or anything, but Halal meat is a disgrace in my opinion, the animals are tortured in such a brutal way to get that flavouring and its disgusting that humans can treat life of an animal like it was nothing and didnt mean anything. But if you enjoy meat thats been brutally tortured whilst its alive before being slaughtered then carry on eating it. Like with KFC... so many enjoy their chicken after the chicken has been sexually assaulted by their workers when its alive, whacked around against walls like it was a baseball bat, then burned alive in acid, then glued (literally!!) back together again and put in your burger buns!

[Fullmetal_Dani]

If I understand right, Halal is food that has been prepared in a specific way.

I've had halal meat before at a Muslim celebration dinner, it's yummy!
It's kind of the opposite of the traditional Scottish prepared meat I grew up with, where on the one side you have scottish Black Pudding, made almost entirely of blood, and on the other side you have halal meat which is not bloody at all.

I think it has to do with other things as well though, not just the blood aspect

---EDIT---
lol Anne you beat me to it!

Not to put you off or anything, but Halal meat is a disgrace in my opinion, the animals are tortured in such a brutal way to get that flavouring and its disgusting that humans can treat life of an animal like it was nothing and didnt mean anything. But if you enjoy meat thats been brutally tortured whilst its alive before being slaughtered then carry on eating it. Like with KFC... so many enjoy their chicken after the chicken has been sexually assaulted by their workers when its alive, whacked around against walls like it was a baseball bat, then burned alive in acid, then glued (literally!!) back together again and put in your burger buns!

Furie that is off topic and could be considered very disrespectful someone who is a Muslim. Please be more careful with your words.

Halal is when the blood is drained from the animal while a prayer is said in its ear. Its no different to electrocuting a sheep hanging upside down like most abattoirs do nowadays.

Anyways, thank you very much for the apology, but you shouldnt have to apologise for other people!

[Lenrir59]

If I understand right, Halal is food that has been prepared in a specific way.

I've had halal meat before at a Muslim celebration dinner, it's yummy!
It's kind of the opposite of the traditional Scottish prepared meat I grew up with, where on the one side you have scottish Black Pudding, made almost entirely of blood, and on the other side you have halal meat which is not bloody at all.

I think it has to do with other things as well though, not just the blood aspect

---EDIT---
lol Anne you beat me to it!

Not to put you off or anything, but Halal meat is a disgrace in my opinion, the animals are tortured in such a brutal way to get that flavouring and its disgusting that humans can treat life of an animal like it was nothing and didnt mean anything. But if you enjoy meat thats been brutally tortured whilst its alive before being slaughtered then carry on eating it. Like with KFC... so many enjoy their chicken after the chicken has been sexually assaulted by their workers when its alive, whacked around against walls like it was a baseball bat, then burned alive in acid, then glued (literally!!) back together again and put in your burger buns!

No offence but your perception of Halal meat is REALLY mis-guided. They aren't tortured and not done for flavouring. It is a traidition that stems from the beginnings of Islam.

Im no Islamist but thats how I percieve Halal Meat.

[Yatak]

Furie that is off topic and could be considered very disrespectful someone who is a Muslim. Please be more careful with your words.

Halal is when the blood is drained from the animal while a prayer is said in its ear. Its no different to electrocuting a sheep hanging upside down like most abattoirs do nowadays.

Anyways, thank you very much for the apology, but you shouldnt have to apologise for other people!

How does that change the flavour?? :S all meat is killed that way (sure stun guns may be used but the animal is killed by sliting the throat).

After doing a bit of research it says that halal meat is not supposed to be killed unconsiously, and slits the throat of the animal while it is wide awake, now while not being my prefered ways of doing things (i would prefer the animal died painlessly) it is hardy barbaric and is certainly not torture -_-.

Comparing it to sexually assualting a chicken is very ignorant and disrespectful. The way i see it is that the animal is going to die one way or another and it will not remember the pain (because of the dead part), sure, as i said i would prefer the meat to have died unconsious as the adrenaline makes the meat very tough. At the end of the day its food and you wouldn't call a lion a torturer.

[Moozman]

Firstly i can appreciate you coming here in wanting to discuss the events of the weekend, it is very admirable whatever the motivation may be.

I personally am of Iranian decent so i can understand the feelings of those who are profiled.
When i arrived on Sunday i was surprised to see metal detectors at the entrance of the Excel center, what surprised me more was not only the fact that half the entrance was covered but also that i walked in with a weapon prop that although wasn't dangerous did not get checked once.
I do believe that the majority of the basis behind the search was not based on skin colour but on which convention they attended, and in the Excel centers ignorance becasue of the nature of the GPU this became racial profiling.
I agree that all attendees of the Excel should have been searched but you must understand that the altercations were with the attendees of the GPU Not the Expo and would have lead to massive delays on what essentially is a larger convention.

On the behavior of Muslims as opposed to Expo attendees i don't think an overtly large generalization was made (or at least i hope so) about the people on both sides, but we have to take into account that even though not everyone who attended the GPU is a fundamentalist (although there was a large fundamentalist presence) you have to understand that (for example) the Anime community is very liberal, Cross dressing in costume is done widely, animations and books are written about sexual content and homo-erotic content, costumers may decide to dress as a character who is a bit too scantly clad compared to others and all these tenants are unacceptable to even the most liberal sects of Islam.
These two conventions were never going to get along, AGAIN a mistake on both conventions' organizers.

Moozman

[fia_x]

If I understand right, Halal is food that has been prepared in a specific way.

I've had halal meat before at a Muslim celebration dinner, it's yummy!
It's kind of the opposite of the traditional Scottish prepared meat I grew up with, where on the one side you have scottish Black Pudding, made almost entirely of blood, and on the other side you have halal meat which is not bloody at all.

I think it has to do with other things as well though, not just the blood aspect

---EDIT---
lol Anne you beat me to it!

Not to put you off or anything, but Halal meat is a disgrace in my opinion, the animals are tortured in such a brutal way to get that flavouring and its disgusting that humans can treat life of an animal like it was nothing and didnt mean anything. But if you enjoy meat thats been brutally tortured whilst its alive before being slaughtered then carry on eating it. Like with KFC... so many enjoy their chicken after the chicken has been sexually assaulted by their workers when its alive, whacked around against walls like it was a baseball bat, then burned alive in acid, then glued (literally!!) back together again and put in your burger buns!

You've got the meaning of halal totally wrong.
Sorry there, but you have ¬_¬' My family are all muslim, aside from myself (Agnostic) I was brought up as a muslim, till I reached that age where I could follow what I believed.
What you stated there is, a misguided reaction of what you think is halal meat.
It may not have been killed unconciously, with a prayer whispered over it, it is DEFINATELY not tortured. It's against the religion in itself to torture ANYTHING, let alone animals.
And, It doesn't taste different ¬_¬' Halal meat isn't made for flavour! Goodness me, A prayer has been made over it so Allah has accepted what you've done and haven't done it out of spite or whatever. You wouldn't say a prayer over killing a spider, so you wouldn't kill it anyway (It's against the religion to kill ANYTHING, but with the exception of food, hence the reason a prayer is said, so to allow acceptance that you are killing it for a good reason, rather than to be malicious).

Not impressed. ¬_¬'

[Regasssa]

I didn't have any problems, myself. I ran into a small group of chavs outside, but didn't consider them attached to the peace event - they didn't seem like a peace and unity kind of bunch. In fact, to be honest, what I noticed were merely nice things. I had my photo taken a few time by people who'd gone browsing the other side of the exhibition hall to see what they could see, and the most awesome photo was taken by this woman who brought her tiny - maybe one and a half foot high - child over to see Sephiroth, who helped the kid hold up his awesome sword. Seriously, I would love to see that photo.

[KageKimasu]

Not to put you off or anything, but Halal meat is a disgrace in my opinion, the animals are tortured in such a brutal way to get that flavouring and its disgusting that humans can treat life of an animal like it was nothing and didnt mean anything. But if you enjoy meat thats been brutally tortured whilst its alive before being slaughtered then carry on eating it. Like with KFC... so many enjoy their chicken after the chicken has been sexually assaulted by their workers when its alive, whacked around against walls like it was a baseball bat, then burned alive in acid, then glued (literally!!) back together again and put in your burger buns!

Actually slaughtering the animal to make it Halal is said to be painless. It says it cuts the arteries in the neck and the nerves in the back are untouched. It is said that the butcher is not allowed to slaughter the animal in front of another animal. There are some other medical faqs that are a bit too technical but you get the point.
Besides I've herd that they make Halal meat commonly not just for muslims but generally, as health and safety. The blood needs to be drained because the blood could carry illnesses.

Anyway I didn't see a problem, I saw some people with the head scarfs come in the expo so that must have been convenient. I saw a small group of younger teens who had no idea what was going on and gave me a weird look when I stepped outside. I just confronted them and had a little chat. I just introduced them to the concept and they found it cool. But that guy on the bridge. Someone needs to sort them out, the staff must have kicked them out or their too cowerdly to do it inside. The blame can't be passed on all the muslims inside so I don't see the prob. Their religion is very peaceful and understanding but its the culture that was around that the religions origins that worries me. As the religion was preserved through time so was the culture and I don't think they work well together.

[sjbonnar]

Firstly i can appreciate you coming here in wanting to discuss the events of the weekend, it is very admirable whatever the motivation may be.

I personally am of Iranian decent so i can understand the feelings of those who are profiled.
When i arrived on Sunday i was surprised to see metal detectors at the entrance of the Excel center, what surprised me more was not only the fact that half the entrance was covered but also that i walked in with a weapon prop that although wasn't dangerous did not get checked once.
I do believe that the majority of the basis behind the search was not based on skin colour but on which convention they attended, and in the Excel centers ignorance becasue of the nature of the GPU this became racial profiling.
I agree that all attendees of the Excel should have been searched but you must understand that the altercations were with the attendees of the GPU Not the Expo and would have lead to massive delays on what essentially is a larger convention.

On the behavior of Muslims as opposed to Expo attendees i don't think an overtly large generalization was made (or at least i hope so) about the people on both sides, but we have to take into account that even though not everyone who attended the GPU is a fundamentalist (although there was a large fundamentalist presence) you have to understand that (for example) the Anime community is very liberal, Cross dressing in costume is done widely, animations and books are written about sexual content and .-erotic content, costumers may decide to dress as a character who is a bit too scantly clad compared to others and all these tenants are unacceptable to even the most liberal sects of Islam.
These two conventions were never going to get along, AGAIN a mistake on both conventions' organizers.

Moozman

I don't think the sudden appearance in metal detectors on the Sunday was anything to do with racial profiling. I heard it was because of the stabbings and word that people were actually going to bring knives into the convention afterwards.

[MasakoX]

I don't think the sudden appearance in metal detectors on the Sunday was anything to do with racial profiling. I heard it was because of the stabbings and word that people were actually going to bring knives into the convention afterwards.

So that's what it was? I thought I heard scuffling that night. :/

I personally didn't get negative vibes thrust at me (I may have not been cosplaying, but I was wearing a prat-worthy headband ^^; ), but I did think it was weird for a conference such as that to being running alongside MCM. In any case, it was two completely different groups of people meeting that don't usually meet.

[Arkayen]

Regarding the behaviour of some Muslims, I'm sorry anyone got insulted. There are a lot of kids who get over-excited and who think it is OK to abuse non-Muslims anyway (think gangstas/football hooligans who've had a bellyful of al-Muhajiroon drivel). To be honest, I found the name embarrassing - they should have named it something which referred to Islam or Muslims as no other religion would have used a stupid apologetic title - and I wish they'd have chosen a smaller venue that we could have booked out entirely, because apart from anything else, nobody else would have had any trouble from our moron element.

Ah but it wasnt JUST kids - it was adults too. I questioned the name of the event. Ive attended while theres been several other events including when the Nick Awards were on and the kids there were amazing! They werent pushy, rude and seemed to love the atmosphere for the best part. Most of us found the adults very rude at the GPU. I had one woman physically push me out of the way and despite clearly taking English when she stood next to me, decided to mutter something in another language after pushing me aside.

No you shouldnt apologise for them as you are clearly not the same however the extremists yelling hatred at anyone different shouldnt have been there. Its easy to blame kids but they werent truely at fault,

[shunasassie]

dont apologise for them as its not you fault, every group has a moron factor & one person shouldnt feel they should be the one to apologise for the moron factor.

But I like to point out that, the girls that pulled my hair & insulted me on the sunday night, I think if I didn't punch back things would off got worst as they were looking for easy targets to start on & wouldnt have the ball to fight back when out number, these girl wasnt kids they were in their early 20s, so was adults.

[Floof]

In any case, it was two completely different groups of people meeting that don't usually meet.

Exactly, a clash of interest is what it was.

But the Excel ogranisers probably wouldnt have thought that there'd be such an issue between the two events coinciding.

I had one woman physically push me out of the way and despite clearly taking English when she stood next to me, decided to mutter something in another language after pushing me aside.

And people like her are always the first ones to turn aroud and complain about the intolerance shown towards them. ¬_¬