“Kill the pigs.” After all, they are a bunch of swine. Were this the rallying cry of a terrorist group or the mantra of war-torn propaganda, such a phrase would not be a surprise. But beyond the barricades in the pigpen, there is a new strain in the refrain. It’s bad enough that the pig has been a symbolic target for censure by the orthodox in Judaism and Islam (Christians were saved by St. Peter’s dream), but now it is subject to literal swinocide. That is what is happening in Egypt, a country where pig bones are as much a part of the rich archaeological record as mummies. Here is the AP story, written by Maamoun Youssef:

CAIRO – Egypt began slaughtering the roughly 300,000 pigs in the country Wednesday as a precaution against swine flu even though no cases have been reported here, infuriating farmers who blocked streets and stoned vehicles of Health Ministry workers who came to carry out the government’s order.

The measure was a stark expression of the panic the deadly outbreak is spreading around the world, especially in poor countries with weak public health systems. Egypt responded similarly a few years ago to an outbreak of bird flu, which is endemic to the country and has killed two dozen people.

At one large pig farming center just north of Cairo, scores of angry farmers blocked the street to prevent Health Ministry workers in trucks and bulldozers from coming in to slaughter the animals. Some pelted the vehicles with rocks and shattered their windshields and the workers left without killing any pigs.

“We remind Hosni Mubarak that we are all Egyptians. Where does he want us to go?” said Gergis Faris, a 46-year-old pig farmer in another part of Cairo who collects garbage to feed his animals. “We are uneducated people, just living day by day and trying to make a living, and now if our pigs are taken from us without compensation, how are we supposed to live?”

Most in the Muslim world consider pigs unclean animals and do not eat pork because of religious restrictions. One Islamic militant Web site carried comments Wednesday saying swine flu was God’s revenge against “infidels.”

Pigs are banned entirely in some Muslim countries including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Libya. However in other parts of the Muslim world, they are often raised by religious minorities who can eat pork.

In Jordan, the government decided Wednesday to shut down the country’s five pig farms, involving 800 animals, for violating public health safety regulations. Half the pigs will be killed and the rest will be relocated to areas away from the population, officials said.

In Egypt, pigs are raised and consumed mainly by the Christian minority, which some estimates put at 10 percent of the population. Health Ministry spokesman Abdel-Rahman Shaheen estimated there are between 300,000-350,000 pigs in Egypt.

Pity the poor misunderstood pig. As WHO officials have noted, the swine flu currently in the air is transmitted by humans and not by contact with pigs. The official name is H1N1 and it is only assumed it originally came from pigs, but who knows how long ago. Egypt is killing off the entire population, but seems to have the wrong target. It is Avian flu that presents a medical emergency along the Nile, but so far no one has suggested open season on migrating birds.

In Israel there is a debate over how to rename the “swine flu,” apparently since even saying the name is now taboo. As the AP reported a few days ago:

The outbreak of swine flu should be renamed “Mexican” influenza in deference to Muslim and Jewish sensitivities over pork, said an Israeli health official Monday.

Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman said the reference to pigs is offensive to both religions and “we should call this Mexican flu and not swine flu,” he told a news conference at a hospital in central Israel.

After Mexico’s ambassador to Israel lodged a formal complaint, the ministry decided to back off the renaming game and let the “swine flu” continue to fuel hatred of the dirty beast. Coupled with the recent political attacks on “pork barrel” spending in the U.S. Congress, the past few months have not been good for the genus Sus. Even Jesus had no respect for pigs, recasting a legion of demons from people to swine in the country of the Gadarenes (Mark 5:10-20). It’s not just apocalyptic Muslims who see the swine flu as a curse. If the pandemic does indeed pan out, we may need to rewrite Lord of the Flies in a sanitized version for the public schools. Come to think of it, maybe we should kill all the flies too, especially the billions that thrive in Egypt.

Luke R. E. Publican