Thinking Meat

Oh give me a break...

While Mecca Cola was launched last year during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the name does not refer to the holy city, Mathlouthi said. "Journalists want to make Mecca Cola a Muslim product. I don't know why, it's a racist act. Mecca was a Navajo Indian tribe wiped out by the white pioneers who wanted to establish the United States. This name of the tribe we have taken for the drink."

Right. Some Muslims are trying to make product more appealing to other Muslims by connecting it with issues important to Muslims in the hope of making a buck, and they just happen to choose the name of an obscure Navajo tribe which only sounds like the name of the city holiest to Muslims. Uh-huh. (Oh, and calling this spade a spade is "a racist act." The Ummah is now a race.)

Not to be out-done, Coke offers its own load of B.S. later on:

Coca-Cola has issued a series of statements trying to refute what it calls myths about its activities in the Middle East. "The Coca-Cola Company and our products are often regarded as American. But the fact is that the Coca-Cola Company is a truly international company, operating worldwide in more than 200 countries. The Coca-Cola business in each country is a local business," it said.

Oh, please. Coca-cola has always been an American brand, and they have made good money selling themselves as part of the mythical "American lifestyle."

I got this by way of Joel the J'African, who neatly summarizes it as follows:

A highly revealing article on Ha'aretz about the radical opportunists who are marketing alternatives to Coke in order to oppose Israel and the U.S. Boycotting Coke hurts local economies in the Arab world and helped foreign businessmen and businesswomen in Paris and London, while fostering a culture of denial instead of healthy indulgence.

Arabs, firing at their own feet again? Not exactly news...