(Photo: Ashley Pomeroy/Wiki Commons)
Harun Nasrullah
The boycott campaign by far-right groups of Toblerone chocolate over its incidental halal certification has been widely mocked on social media.
I hear air is Halal certified too. Do the rest of the world a favor and boycott breathing. #Boycotttoblerone
— Shauna (@FCDallasMom2) December 25, 2018
The US-based confectionery company Mondelez, which produces Toblerone, announced last month its factory in Switzerland, had been awarded the status, which certifies the bars are permissible for Muslims to consume under Islamic dietary laws.
The company said it had not altered the ingredients of the product in order to earn the designation and had been producing halal-friendly chocolate since April. “The Toblerone’s original recipe remained unchanged,” said a spokesman for Mondelez.
“Too bad, I like to eat. But I don’t like Muslim food,” another said on Facebook, while a third announced: “Toblerone is now on my list!”
What’s your favorite #MuslimFood? What kind of #MuslimFood do you enjoy? #BoycottToblerone https://t.co/dMIKnHVm5E
— Raquel E Saraswati (@RaquelEvita) December 26, 2018
However, the certification appeared to alarm some, including Jörg Meuthen, the Federal spokesman of Germany’s far-right AfD party, who described the move as part of a wider trend of “Islamisation” in Europe.
“Islamisation does not take place – neither in Germany nor in Europe,” he wrote on his official Facebook page, sharing an article about Toblerone’s new certification.
To everyone saying they will #BoycottToblerone because their chocolate was found to be halal (and it has always been because it hasn’t changed), are you also boycotting all eggs, vegetables, fruit, pasta, most cheese and bread? Cause all that stuff is coincidentally halal too.
— rob (@mspk7305) December 21, 2018
It is therefore certainly a pure coincidence that the depicted, known chocolate variety is now certified as halal.” Although several commentators appeared to agree with Meuthen, with many calling for consumers to boycott the product in protest, most people took to social media to mock the outrage over the news and took control of the #Boycotttoblerone twitter trend.
One Twitter user’s vow never to buy Toblerone again was met with over 390 replies mocking her. ‘Please boycott water and oxygen. I’d like to see natural selection taking place while you’re at it’, wrote one user.
A less mocking post explained that ‘All chocolate no matter whom it is made by when free of alcohol and pork byproducts is halal (permissible/allowed). In fact, the fruit and veggies you eat daily are also halal. Toblerone have not changed the recipe to make their products Halal. They simply are halal.’
Jess Carney tweeted ‘This #BoycottToblerone hashtag is golden. One of those moments in which you can’t decipher whether it’s satire or genuine idiocy. Toblerone has always been halal. The recipe hasn’t changed. It’s not like there was f**kin pork in the recipe u mongs.’
