I've made it clear that I would never boycott a local business just
because it was owned or run by Moslems. I've already sworn off Iranian
fairy floss, my teeth aren't the best and the one time I tried it I had
to rinse my mouth out the pain was so bad.

However I've been thinking. If I did want to stage a boycott, how would
I know who to stay away from? I mean, in this country you're not
required to put a sign up at the door indicating your religious
affiliation - it's optional, of course, kosher businesses seem to find
it a useful marketing ploy to advertise themselves as such, but nobody
makes them and you just sort of assume that the proprietors are Jewsh
and you can stay away if you're boycotting Jewish businesses at the moment.

Obviously Turkish restaurants are a no-brainer. Turkish bakeries are
more problematical. Their products are everywhere - even if I'm sure
the lunch place is not run by Moslems, do I have to ask where they get
the pides and foccaccias? Probably safer to stick to baguettes.

The lunch places themselves are a problem. If all the Lebanese in the
Melbourne food industry dropped dead, we'd starve to death, certainly at
lunchtime. But how do you know if somebody who you think is probably
Lebanese - could be Greek or Egyptian or some other sort of wog, after
all - is Christian or Moslem? Or maybe a Scientologist?

Same thing goes for Indian and Malyasian restaurants and grocers. Not
to mention the distinct possibility that there are a number of partners
of different backgrounds. I'm not seriously going to ask, now am I? But
I'm hardly going to boycott our new local Indian restaurant -
proprietors orginally from Malaysia and Mumbai - because I don't know
the religious backgrounds of the proprietors.

Get away from retail businesses and it gets worse. There are Indians
everywhere these days. Doctors, lawyers, IT professionals, and they
never mention their religion. The Moslems really ought to wear some sort
of badge you know so you can identify them.

And don't mention the cricket, tests against India and Pakistan would
definitely have to be ignored but we'd have to refuse to play the
English as well on account of the ethnic origins of some of their players.

I have the idea that ths sort of problem has arisen in the past, I'm
just trying to remember where...

Christine