"Ban Peppa Pig" By UK Muslim Was A Joke

A parody video by a British Muslim on Youtube has caused quite a stir.  His Youtube channel quite clearly states BritishMuslim Comedy, but United Midlands posted the video on its Youtube channel and now many people think he’s for real.

In the video Zayn Sheikh talks about how his 6-year-old son wants to become a pig instead of a doctor after watching the cartoon “Peppa Pig”, so now he wants it banned from the UK airwaves. He even, allegedly, set up a Facebook page Muslims Against Peppa Pig (though I’m not sure this is the original page) which spawned a slew of  ”Peppa Pig Against Muslims” pages.  The whole story sounded a tad suspect when I read about it on Al Arabiya, which linked to an article on the Mirror UK. In one sentence, at the end of the article, the Mirror does mention that some think it to be a spoof, which it clearly is, but seems to dismiss that possibility. Al Arabiya doesn’t even mention the possibility.

In the video Sheikh says:

“Some of you, right, might have seen this abominable creature before, right, this Peppa Pig. Haram pig.”

“As Muslims it is very important that we do not eat meat of the pork,” he explains.

“It is completely wrong that our kids are being shown these things on TV and my son … he wants to be a pig now.”

“I think that we need to change this so I’m going to set up a Facebook group, ‘Muslims against Peppa Pig,’ and instead, because children still need cartoons to develop their minds, I propose we introduce Abdullah the cat.”

That’s pretty wacky, and I know that Muslims have demanded some pretty wacky things, but this just seemed pretty odd. So I watched the video, and it all seemed very tongue in cheek, including a not-so-great unidentifiable dialect, and quite obviously a joke. Even the haram pig sign is indicative of a lack of seriousness. Then I started looking at the comments, and though the bulk of them were condemnations, there were a few people claiming the video was satire. One person linked to the original video, which proved indeed that it was a parody.

There are two videos on BritishMuslim Comedy channel: “Dangers of Peppa Pig To Muslim Children [Parody]“ with this disclaimer

DISCLAIMER: This video is obviously a parody. I have NOT made the page ‘Muslims Against Peppa Pig’ or any other Facebook pages of the sort. For those of you who have got offended; don’t reproduce. This country’s possible future downfall is 1 million times more likely be down to the rapid multiplication of the mentally deficient like you who have failed to spot the satire rather than immigrants who have been unlucky in the accident of birth and have since then decided to move here for better prospects (just like you would in their shoes).

He obviously added the disclaimer after the hubbub, since it was originally uploaded in June.  And he just uploaded another video addressing the hubbub, where he eventually speaks with his normal Brit dialect.

I realize that Muslims can demand some pretty ludicrous things, and there have been some ridiculous laughable fatwas, but when something seems so far out, it usually winds up being bogus. Like this.