Retail Chain Removes Christmas Decorations From Shelves: ‘We’re a Muslim Business Now’
The pastime of shopping for Christmas decorations ended early this year for the residents of Dortmund, Germany.
The town’s local Woolworths, a popular department store, announced it was now catering to Muslims, and that Christmas decorations were to only be on display for a few days.
A member of the store’s staff reportedly claimed, “We are a Muslim business now. We do not want to sell Christmas articles.”
A local shopper reported all of the shelves featuring Christmas decorations were full on a Friday in mid-November, but when she visited again a day later, everything had been removed. According to the managers of Woolworths — which has 300 stores in Germany — the demand for Christmas related items was too low to justify keeping them on the shelves.
“The Christmas articles are hardly in demand here. Already last year, everything remained unsold,” Seda Capakcur, the branch’s manager, said.
Diana Preisert, a spokesman for Woolworths, tried to reassure the public that it is not a Muslim company, and that Christmas-themed items could be purchased as early as September.
“Woolworths is, of course, not a Muslim company. Christmas merchandise is available from September onwards and should be sold out by the end of December,” Preisert said.
“In this branch, however, demand was too low. Therefore the goods were distributed to other branches,” she added.
Preisert mentioned that not many people in the area celebrate Christmas because of “local conditions.” The local conditions she’s referring to are recent immigration policies, which resulted in a huge influx of Muslim migrants and have drastically changed the area’s demographics.
According to city officials, the share of Christians in the total population of Northern Dortmund where the store is located is less than 30 percent.
The Sun reported that local internet users were outraged when they heard about the store’s decision, posting things like “makes me puke” and “the company has themselves to blame if their sales will not go up.”
Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, one of the individuals largely responsible for Germany’s immigration policies, tried to comfort people last month by suggesting Germans play Christmas Carols to stop the Islamisation of their culture.
While speaking at a Christian Democratic Union party in Wittenburg, Merkel claimed Germany was going to lose a piece of it’s homeland if citizens didn’t participate in passing on Christianity.
“How many Christmas carols do we still know? And how many of them are we passing on to our children and grandchildren?” she said.
Tensions over immigration issues have flared up throughout the year. One incident concerning a German primary school left parents furious when they found out their children were being forced to chant “Allahu Akbar” in Muslim prayer.
That incident came just weeks after parents complained their children’s nursery was refusing to acknowledge “Christmas rituals” in order to accommodate diverse cultures. (For more from the author of “Retail Chain Removes Christmas Decorations From Shelves: ‘We’re a Muslim Business Now'” please click HERE)
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